Stories Page

The /stories page surfaces the best journal entries as curated "Build Logs from the Lab." It's the public-facing showcase of authentic engineering content.

Purpose

Makes the strongest journal content discoverable without requiring visitors to browse 97+ chronological entries. Positioned as the viral content layer — dramatic titles, real incidents, human stories.

Architecture

• Route: /stories
• Rendering: Static (SSG)
• Layout: CosmicLayout (starfield, nebula, glassmorphic)
• Data Source: getCollectionMeta('journal') filtered to curated slug list and published entries
• Styles: scoped Astro styles (cards, mood colors)
• No client JS required (pure SSG)

Design

Hero

• Title: "Build Logs from the Lab"
• Subtitle: Real engineering stories positioning (no tutorials, no tips)

Featured Story (large card)

• First entry in curated list (currently: "The 463-Message Saga")
• Full description, mood badge, date, tags, arrow CTA
• Glassmorphic card with purple border accent

Stories Grid

• Remaining 14 entries in responsive grid (minmax(320px, 1fr))
• Each card: mood badge (color-coded), title, description, date, tags
• Hover: translateY(-4px) + purple border glow

Mood Colors

Mood	Color	Hex
DEBUGGING	Amber	#f59e0b
TRIUMPHANT	Green	#22c55e
INCIDENT	Red	#ef4444
DISCOVERY	Cyan	#06b6d4
LOG	Slate	#94a3b8
Default	Purple	#8b5cf6

CTA

• Links to full journal: "Browse All Journal Entries" → /journal

Curated Entries (15)

Entries are hardcoded by slug in curatedSlugs array. Order determines display order (first = featured).

1. The 463-Message Saga (TRIUMPHANT) — origin story
2. The RAID That Almost Ate Christmas (DEBUGGING) — family data recovery
3. The Crash Recovery & The Lab Engine Goes Live (INCIDENT) — multi-crisis
4. The Kernel That Panicked Every Three Minutes (DEBUGGING) — k3s/kernel
5. [object Object] — The Three-Headed Hydra (TRIUMPHANT) — SSR debugging
6. The 812GB Hiding in Plain Sight (DISCOVERY) — storage pivot
7. 25 Bugs, One Night (TRIUMPHANT) — build-swarm marathon
8. The Tunnel With Two Heads (DEBUGGING) — Cloudflare nondeterminism
9. The Thunderbolt That Killed DNS (DEBUGGING) — networking chaos
10. The Reboot Loop That Blamed the Wrong Code (DEBUGGING) — paranoid debugging
11. The Race Condition That Ate My Binaries (DEBUGGING) — concurrency
12. Three Rsync Bugs In One Day (DEBUGGING) — distributed systems
13. The AudioBooks Folder That Ate Itself Three Times (DEBUGGING) — NAS cleanup
14. The Day I Learned OpenRC Isn't Systemd (DISCOVERY) — Gentoo learning
15. The GRUB That Forgot Everything (DEBUGGING) — boot archaeology

Adding/Removing Stories

Edit the curatedSlugs array in src/pages/stories.astro. Slugs must match journal entry filenames (without .md). First slug becomes the featured story.

Change History

Date	Change
2026-03-13	Created as part of viral roadmap initiative. 15 curated journal entries.