What’s a trail?

What

Out in the world, a trail is a marked path: start here, walk this way, arrive there. On this site it’s the same idea applied to notes. An ordered list of them, meant to be read start to finish, like a short course instead of a pile.

Why

Notes are small on purpose, but small things need something to hold them together. Otherwise they’re just a pile. A trail is that something: it tells you what order to read in, and why the order matters. Its status also says whether it’s still growing, so you know when it’s unfinished.

How

A trail has a code, a title, a goal, and a list of steps. Each step is either a note that exists, or something planned but not written yet, shown hollow so you can see what’s coming. A note can sit on more than one trail. Where it does, that crossing is called an interchange.

Reading one

Open a trail and it shows every step in order, with your progress: read, current, or still ahead. That’s kept in your own browser for now, not tracked anywhere else. Reading a note inside a trail also shows a small rail: which step you’re on, how many are left, and where to go next.