beta works with personal test site.

updated readme
changed to php base
2026-08-02 14:04:37 -07:00 · 2026-07-20 22:00:45 -07:00 · 2026-07-20 20:30:03 -07:00 · 2026-07-17 03:00:31 +00:00 · 2026-07-17 02:43:03 +00:00 · 2026-07-16 05:30:10 +00:00
71 changed files with 2895 additions and 1143 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+.git
+.gitignore
+graphify-out/
+.claude/
+public/cache/*
+!public/cache/.gitkeep
+data/*.sqlite*
+images/*
+!images/.gitkeep
+docker-compose.yml
+Dockerfile
+Dockerfile.sass
@@ -6,3 +6,7 @@
 /data/*.sqlite-wal
 /data/*.sqlite-shm
 .claude/
+/graphify-out/
+/public/uploads/*
+!/public/uploads/.gitkeep
+.env
@@ -1,45 +1,42 @@
 # AGENTS.md

 Context for any coding agent working in this repo — Claude, DeepSeek, or
-otherwise; this file (and the maintenance rule below) applies regardless of
-which model or CLI is driving. Full narrative docs live at `/admin/docs`
-when the app is running (also the *only* place Twig upgrade instructions
-live now — see `/admin/docs/upgrading-twig`; there's no separate
-MAINTENANCE.md, keeping one copy in the docs page avoids drift). `README.md`
-is the GitHub-facing pitch, `novaconium/ISSUES.md` is the roadmap/backlog,
-and this file is the short, agent-facing version. The original design
-rationale used to live in a standalone `plan.md`; it's now folded into
-`/admin/docs/design-notes` (everything in it shipped) and the file was
-deleted. There used to also be a
-`GUIDE.md` mirroring `/admin/docs` for offline reading — it was removed to
-cut a doc copy that had to be kept in sync; `/admin/docs` is the only
-narrative reference now.
+otherwise. Full narrative docs live at `/admin/docs` when the app is
+running. `README.md` is the GitHub-facing pitch, `novaconium/ISSUES.md` is
+the roadmap/backlog, and this file is the short, agent-facing version:
+load-bearing gotchas and conventions only, not narrative history.

-## Documentation is duplicated on purpose — keep all copies in sync
+**This repo has a graphify knowledge graph (`graphify-out/`).** For design
+rationale, "why was it built this way," or exploring how components relate,
+query the graph instead of expecting this file to carry that context — this
+file is kept intentionally short and only lists things that will cause a
+bug or a broken convention if you don't know them going in.
+
+## Docs live in one place: `/admin/docs` — README stays thin

 Every topic (routing, sidecars, libraries, layouts, caching, SEO, Matomo,
-admin authentication, styling, project layout, third-party) exists in
-**two** places: a page under `novaconium/pages/admin/docs/<topic>/index.twig`
-(the canonical reference), and (for anything a README-reading human needs
-up front) a mention in `README.md`. This is intentional — `/admin/docs` is
-for reading against a running instance with no internet needed, and
-`README.md` is the GitHub-facing pitch — but it means **any agent that
-changes framework behavior or adds a feature must update both copies in
-the same change**, not just the one that was open. Concretely, after
-touching routing/rendering/caching/SEO behavior or adding a new top-level
-docs topic:
+admin auth, styling, Docker, project layout, third-party) has exactly one
+canonical writeup: a page under `novaconium/pages/admin/docs/<topic>/index.twig`.
+`README.md` deliberately does **not** mirror this content — it's a short
+GitHub-facing pitch (what this is, minimal steps to get it running, a
+pointer into `/admin/docs`) plus the Third-party section, nothing more. The
+full feature list lives as a blog post, `App/pages/blog/novaconium-features/`
+(sample content, replaceable like any other post), not in the README. This
+was a deliberate change (2026-07-15) away from an earlier "keep README and
+docs in sync" convention that had made the README long and hard to scan —
+don't re-add a feature list or per-topic bullet list to README.md.

-1. Update (or add) the matching page under
-   `novaconium/pages/admin/docs/<topic>/index.twig`, and if it's a new
-   topic, link it from both `admin/docs/index.twig` and the nav in
-   `admin/docs/_layout/layout.twig`.
-2. Update `README.md` if the change affects the feature list, getting
-   started steps, or the docs index there.
-3. Update this file if the change affects a convention an agent needs to
-   know before editing code (not just narrative docs).
+Any change to framework behavior or a new feature:

-A doc change that only touches one of these copies is incomplete —
-verify the other copy before considering the task done.
+1. Update/add the docs page, and if new, link it from both
+   `admin/docs/index.twig` and the nav in `admin/docs/_layout/layout.twig`.
+2. Update `App/pages/blog/novaconium-features/index.twig` (and its entry in
+   `App/pages/blog/index.php`) if it affects the feature tour.
+3. Update `README.md` only if it affects the one-paragraph pitch, the
+   minimal getting-started steps, or the Third-party section — not a
+   per-feature bullet.
+4. Update this file only if it affects a convention an agent needs to know
+   before editing code.

 ## What this is

@@ -50,307 +47,122 @@ pages get pre-rendered to static HTML on first request and served straight
 from Apache after that. No Composer, no build step to install — Twig is
 vendored as plain source files.

-## The two-root split — read this before editing anything under `pages/` or `lib/`
+## The two-root split

-Everything lives in one of two places:
-
- **`App/`** — the actual project: `App/pages/` (routes/content) and
-  `App/lib/` (project's own `Lib\` classes). This is the only directory a
+- **`App/`** — the project: `App/pages/`, `App/lib/` (`Lib\` classes),
+  `App/config.php`, `App/migrations/`, `App/sass/`. The only directory a
  site author is expected to touch.
- **`novaconium/`** — the framework itself: router/renderer core
-  (`novaconium/src/`), default pages (`novaconium/pages/` — root layout,
-  404, the `/admin` tools), default `Lib\` classes (`novaconium/lib/`),
-  vendored Twig, autoloader, config, bootstrap.
+- **`novaconium/`** — the framework: router/renderer core
+  (`novaconium/src/`), default pages/libs, vendored Twig, autoloader,
+  config, bootstrap.

-Routing and rendering resolve against **both roots, in order** —
-`App/pages/` first, `novaconium/pages/` as fallback — via
-`novaconium/src/Overlay.php`. Same mechanism for `Lib\` classes:
-`App/lib/` is checked before `novaconium/lib/` in `novaconium/autoload.php`.
-Concretely: dropping a file at the same relative path in `App/` overrides
-the `novaconium/` default; nothing needs to be duplicated for the site to
-work, since `novaconium/pages/` already supplies a working layout and 404.
+Routing/rendering resolve against **both roots, `App/` first** (via
+`novaconium/src/Overlay.php` for pages, `novaconium/autoload.php` for
+`Lib\` classes) — same override-by-presence mechanism used for
+`config.php`, Twig's `FilesystemLoader`, and Sass (see below). A project
+only lists the config keys it's changing in `App/config.php`; never edit
+`novaconium/config.php` directly.

-Twig's `FilesystemLoader` is constructed with both paths as an array, so
-`{% extends %}` / `{% include %}` get this override-then-fallback
-resolution for free — no custom logic needed there.
+**`db_connections` is the one config key that isn't a plain shallow-merge.**
+`Lib\Db::config()` (and the duplicate in `bin/migrate.php`) merges it one
+level deeper, by connection name, so adding a second connection in
+`App/config.php` can't silently delete the framework's `default`
+connection. Capture the defaults *before* the top-level `array_merge()`
+overwrites `$config['db_connections']`, not after. See `/admin/docs/database`.

-The same override-by-presence pattern applies to `novaconium/config.php`:
-if `App/config.php` exists, `novaconium/bootstrap.php` and
-`novaconium/bin/clear-cache.php` shallow-merge it over the framework defaults
-with `array_merge()`. A project only needs to list the keys it's changing
-— never edit `novaconium/config.php` directly.
+`Lib\Db` supports multiple, simultaneously-open named connections
+(`'sqlite'`/`'mysql'` drivers only). Each connection migrates lazily on
+first use, tracked by path **relative to the repo root** (not bare
+filename — two roots can share a filename). `migrations_dir` accepts an
+ordered list of roots, each fully processed before the next.

-`config['matomo_url']` / `config['matomo_site_id']` (both default `''`)
-gate the Matomo tracking script emitted by the root layout — set both via
-`App/config.php` to enable it, since either being empty disables tracking
-entirely. `bootstrap.php` normalizes a missing trailing slash on
-`matomo_url` before passing it to `Renderer`, which exposes `matomo_url`,
-`matomo_site_id`, and `is_404` as Twig globals (`is_404` is overridden to
-`true` in the 404 template's local render context by
-`Renderer::renderNotFound()`, per Twig's local-context-over-global
-precedence). Any new Twig global added to `Renderer`'s constructor should
-follow this same pattern: default value, `addGlobal()` call, documented
-here and in `/admin/docs`.
+**The default DB path (`data/novaconium.sqlite`) lives outside `public/`
+(web-accessible) and `novaconium/`** (wholesale-replaced by framework
+updates) — it's a project-owned top-level dir, gitignored per-content with
+a tracked `.gitkeep`. Uploaded files (see Media manager,
+`/admin/docs/media-manager`) live under `public/uploads/` instead, since
+they need to be web-reachable directly — a separate, plain static
+directory on its own volume, not coupled to the SQLite path, since a
+project may run MySQL or no DB at all.

-`config['site_name']` (default `'My Site'`) is the same pattern — passed to
-`Renderer` and exposed as the `site_name` Twig global, used by
-`novaconium/pages/_layout/layout.twig` for the default `title` block,
-`og:site_name`, and the footer copyright line. Any other hardcoded
-site-identity string that shows up in a shared template (as opposed to a
-per-page override) should become a `config.php` key the same way, not stay
-hardcoded in the template.
+## Standing rule: caching vs. any content-hiding mechanism

-`config['admin_username']` / `config['admin_password_hash']` (username
-defaults to `'admin'`, password hash defaults to `''`) gate every
-`/admin/*` route behind HTTP Basic Auth — this replaced the old
-`docs_enabled` flag entirely (removed); a single gate over all of
-`/admin/*` (docs included) made a docs-only toggle redundant. Unlike the
-Twig-global pattern above, the gate itself is enforced in `bootstrap.php`,
-before rendering: `AdminAuth::requireLogin(...)`
-(`novaconium/src/AdminAuth.php`) is called once for any resolved route
-whose path is `admin` or starts with `admin/`. **Any new admin page
-dropped under `App/pages/admin/` or `novaconium/pages/admin/` is
-automatically protected — no per-page wiring needed.** `bootstrap.php`
-also special-cases the literal path `/admin/logout` *before* router
-resolution — no page exists there — to call `AdminAuth::logout()`, which
-always issues a fresh 401 so the browser drops its cached credentials
-(there's no server-side session to invalidate). `Renderer` separately
-exposes an `admin_auth_enabled` Twig global (true when a password hash is
-set) so `admin/index.twig` can conditionally show the "Logout" link — this
-is a derived display flag, not the enforcement mechanism itself, which
-never depends on Twig. `novaconium/pages/admin/password-hash/` is a
-built-in `password_hash()` form (no CLI needed) for generating
-`admin_password_hash` — a normal admin page, so it's covered by the same
-gate: reachable while no password is set yet (to generate the first
-one), then protected like everything else under `/admin/*` afterward. It
-computes and displays the hash per-request only; nothing is persisted or
-logged. This is a single-user HTTP Basic Auth stopgap, not
-the full multi-user system tracked in `novaconium/ISSUES.md` ("Admin login & user
-management"); don't extend this class toward multi-user/session-based
-auth — that's a separate, larger feature that
-will replace it.
+**Any mechanism that conditionally hides page content from the public
+must be threaded into `Renderer::render()`'s `$excludeFromCache` param, not
+just a pre-render auth gate.** `Renderer::render()` writes a sidecar-less
+page's output to the static HTML cache, and `.htaccess` serves a cached
+file *before PHP (and therefore any auth check) ever runs again*. A route
+gated only at the auth-check level still leaks to the public the moment an
+authorized user views it once, if the page has no sidecar. `draft_routes`
+and every `/admin/*` route already pass `true` for this reason. Any new
+feature that gates a route by anything other than a sidecar check needs the
+same treatment — this has caused a real bug before, twice.

-`Lib\Db` (`novaconium/lib/Db.php`) is the SQLite/MySQL groundwork tracked
-in `novaconium/ISSUES.md` — a thin, no-ORM PDO wrapper, `Lib\` (not `App\`)
-so a project can override it via `App/lib/Db.php` like any other `Lib\`
-class. It supports multiple, independently-configured, **simultaneously
-open** named connections (`config['db_connections']`, keyed by name) rather
-than one global connection — because sidecars are plain PHP with full
-access to any `Lib\` class, a single request can legitimately need more
-than one database at once (e.g. this site's own SQLite data alongside a
-MySQL connection to a legacy database). `Db::query(string $sql, array
-$params = [], string $connection = 'default')` (prepare+execute) is the
-only query-running helper — never add a string-interpolation shortcut; see
-`Lib\Input`'s doc-comment, which already commits this project to
-parameterized queries as the sole SQL-injection defense. Each connection is
-lazy and independent (opened on first `Db::query()`/`Db::connection()` call
-naming it, same shape as `Lib\Csrf`'s lazy session start), and migrates
-automatically at that point: plain `.sql` files under that connection's own
-`migrations_dir` — a single path, or (since the content index shipped) an
-**ordered list of roots**, each root's own files filename-ordered and
-roots processed fully in the order given, not interleaved by filename
-across roots (so a framework root always finishes before a project root on
-the same connection). Tracked by path **relative to the repo root** (e.g.
-`novaconium/migrations/0001_x.sql`), not bare filename — two roots can
-each contain a same-named file, and tracking by bare filename would make
-the second one seen look "already applied" and silently skip it; a
-repo-relative path is also portable across environments, unlike a full
-absolute path, which would make every migration look new again after a
-clone/deploy to a different directory. `realpath()` normalizes any `..` a
-`migrations_dir` like `__DIR__ . '/../App/migrations'` would otherwise
-leave in the tracked name. Each connection's own auto-created
-`schema_migrations` table tracks its migrations independently of any other
-connection's; each is only ever run once. `novaconium/bin/migrate.php`
-loops every configured connection and runs the same migration step
-explicitly (e.g. from a deploy script) without serving a request first.
-Only `'sqlite'` and `'mysql'` drivers are implemented; a connection's
-`migrations_dir` is optional — omit it to never run migrations against
-that connection (e.g. a legacy database this project shouldn't manage
-schema for).
+Corollary: `Lib\Access` (the sidecar-level content gate, see
+`/admin/docs/access-control`) is safe by construction — a page with no
+sidecar can't call `Access`, and only sidecar-less pages get cached, so a
+gated page can never leak through the cache with no extra wiring needed.

-**`db_connections` is the one config key in the project that isn't plain
-shallow-merge** — `bootstrap.php`/`bin/*.php`'s usual `array_merge($config,
-$appConfig)` would let a project's `App/config.php` silently delete the
-framework's `default` connection just by adding a second named connection
-(a shallow merge replaces the whole key, it doesn't merge inside it). So
-`Lib\Db::config()` (and the copy of this logic duplicated in
-`bin/migrate.php`, same duplication precedent as the two-step config load
-already duplicated across `bootstrap.php`/`bin/clear-cache.php`) merges
-`db_connections` one level deeper, by connection name, **after** capturing
-the framework defaults — capture the defaults *before* the top-level
-`array_merge()` overwrites `$config['db_connections']`, not after, or the
-deeper merge silently operates on the already-overwritten value and the
-`default` connection vanishes anyway. (This exact bug was hit once while
-building this feature — verified by testing a real `App/config.php`
-override end-to-end, not just reading the code — so it's worth re-checking
-by hand if this logic is ever touched again.) See
-`/admin/docs/database` for the worked example.
+## Reentrancy hazard: ContentIndexer

-**`config['db_connections']['default']['path']` must stay outside both
-`public/` (would be web-accessible) and `novaconium/`** — unlike
-`cache_dir`/`contact-log.txt`, which are disposable, a SQLite file is data a
-project can't afford to lose, and `novaconium/` gets wholesale-replaced by
-the "Updating the framework" workflow (`/admin/docs/getting-started`: `rm
-rf novaconium && cp -r <new-novaconium>`). The default
-(`data/novaconium.sqlite`) lives in a new top-level `data/` directory
-instead — project-owned like `App/`, gitignored per-file
-(`*.sqlite`/`-journal`/`-wal`/`-shm`, with a tracked `.gitkeep` so the
-directory exists in a fresh clone) rather than wholesale like
-`public/cache/`, since a project might reasonably want other non-DB files
-there later. The default connection's `migrations_dir` scans
-`novaconium/migrations/` (framework-shipped schema, e.g. the content
-index below) before `App/migrations/` (project schema) — see the
-`migrations_dir` array-form paragraph above. Any *other* connection a
-project adds still defaults to no `migrations_dir` at all unless it sets
-one; the two-root default is specific to `default`.
+`ContentIndexer::reindex()` renders every routable page, including
+`/search` itself, which also calls `ContentIndexer::ensureFresh()`.
+Guarded by a `private static bool $indexing` flag checked at the top of
+both methods — don't remove it, any new consumer route inherits the same
+hazard automatically. `reindex()` also forces
+`$_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']` to `'GET'` for the duration of the crawl
+(restored in a `finally`) so a lazy reindex triggered from a POST can't
+leak that POST into an unrelated page's sidecar.

-`Lib\Session` (`novaconium/lib/Session.php`) is a thin wrapper around
-native PHP sessions (`session_start()`/`$_SESSION`, not a custom store),
-all-static and lazy-start like `Lib\Csrf` — nothing calls `session_start()`
-until the first real call to a `Session` method. Its `ensureSession()` is a
-**deliberate duplicate** of `Csrf::ensureSession()` (same cookie params,
-same `session_status()` guard) rather than a shared helper — keeps `Csrf`
-standalone with zero new dependencies on a class that didn't exist when it
-shipped, same tolerance for small duplication already established by the
-config-load block duplicated across `bootstrap.php`/`bin/clear-cache.php`/
-`Lib\Db::config()`. Both classes touching the same native session in the
-same request is safe either way, since `session_start()` silently no-ops
-if a session is already active — there's no ordering requirement between
-`Csrf::token()`/`::verify()` and any `Session` method.
+## Vendored dependency placement

-Flash data (`Session::flash()`/`::getFlash()`) is one swap, not a
-sweep/expiry pass: the first `Session` method call in a request snapshots
-whatever was flashed on the *previous* request into an in-memory static
-(`self::$currentFlash`) for that request's `getFlash()` reads, then
-immediately empties the stored flash bucket so `flash()` calls made
-*during* the current request start filling a fresh bucket for the request
-after this one. This relies on static properties not persisting across
-requests (true under `php -S`, mod_php, and PHP-FPM alike — each request
-gets fresh PHP state regardless of worker-process reuse) — don't add any
-caching/memoization to `Session` that assumes static state survives
-between requests, since none of it does. See `/admin/docs/session` for a
-worked flash example.
+**Server-side-only (PHP, autoloaded) → `novaconium/vendor/`. Anything a
+browser fetches (`.js`, `.css`, images) → `public/vendor/`** — `novaconium/`
+is never web-reachable. This matters beyond correctness: `public/` is
+project-owned and untouched by a framework update, so a `public/vendor/`
+dependency bump does **not** propagate automatically the way a
+`novaconium/vendor/` bump would — re-vendoring is a manual step per
+dependency (see `/admin/docs/upgrading-highlightjs`).

-**Standing rule: any mechanism that conditionally hides page content from
-the public must also be threaded into `Renderer::render()`'s
-`$excludeFromCache` decision, not just a pre-render auth gate.** This
-bit twice already — once as a designed-around gotcha (draft pages), once
-as a real pre-existing bug found while testing that feature (`/admin/*`
-itself). The reason: `Renderer::render()` writes a sidecar-less page's
-output to the static HTML cache (`novaconium/src/Cache.php`), and
-`.htaccess` serves a cached file *before PHP, and therefore any auth
-check, ever runs again* (see `/admin/docs/caching`). A route can be
-gated by `AdminAuth::requireLogin()`/`::isAuthenticated()` and still leak
-completely to the public the moment it's viewed once by someone
-authorized, if the page has no sidecar and nothing tells `Renderer` to
-skip the cache write for that route. `draft_routes` (see
-`/admin/docs/drafts`, `novaconium/config.php`) and every `/admin/*` route
-both pass `true` for `Renderer::render()`'s `$excludeFromCache` param
-from `novaconium/bootstrap.php` for exactly this reason — most pages
-under `novaconium/pages/admin/` (e.g. `admin/index.twig`) have no
-sidecar, so before this was wired up, visiting `/admin` once as an
-authenticated admin would cache the admin panel and serve it to every
-subsequent visitor, unauthenticated, straight from `public/cache/admin/`.
-Any future feature that gates a route by anything other than a sidecar
-check (paywall content is the next one on the roadmap likely to hit this)
-needs to make the same check here, not just at the point where the
-request is first authorized.
+## Twig gotchas that will fatal without `mbstring`

-`AdminAuth::isAuthenticated(string $username, string $passwordHash): bool`
-(`novaconium/src/AdminAuth.php`) is the credential check on its own, with
-no response side effects, extracted out of `requireLogin()` (which still
-does the same check, then issues the `401` challenge on failure) so a
-different caller can react to failure differently. The draft-page gate in
-`bootstrap.php` is the first such caller: on failure it renders a plain
-404 via the same path an unmatched route takes, not a login prompt —
-prompting for credentials at a draft URL would itself reveal that
-something is gated there, which defeats the point of hiding it. Returns
-`true` (open access) when `$passwordHash` is empty, mirroring
-`requireLogin()`'s existing no-op-when-unset posture, so a draft behaves
-consistently with the rest of `/admin/*`: wide open until a password is
-configured, gated once one is.
+Don't use `|slice` on a **string** (calls `mb_substr()` unconditionally) or
+`|escape('js')`/`'js'` arg to `|e` (calls `mb_ord()`) — both hard-require
+`mbstring` and fatal without it; this project deliberately avoids that
+dependency. Truncate strings in PHP with an `mb_substr`/`substr` fallback
+instead. For markup destined for inline `<script>`, render into a
+`<template>` element and read `.innerHTML` in JS rather than
+`|escape('js')`.

-`App\ContentIndexer` (`novaconium/src/ContentIndexer.php`) is the shared
-crawler behind `/sitemap.xml`, `/search`, and blog tag browsing (see
-`/admin/docs/content-index`) — `App\`, not `Lib\`, since it's rendering
-infrastructure akin to `Renderer`/`Router`, not project-overridable
-content. Content stays in files; only metadata is indexed. Per-page
-metadata is four Twig blocks declared in the root layout next to the SEO
-blocks (`keywords`, `tags`, `changefreq`, `priority` — the last three
-never rendered into the page, only harvested) and pulled via
-`Renderer::renderForIndex()`, which calls Twig's own
-`TemplateWrapper::renderBlock()` per block rather than parsing `.twig`
-source — this is deliberate: it gets App-over-novaconium override and
-layout-inheritance resolution for free, the same way a real render does.
-**`config['content_index_enabled']` defaults to `false`** — same posture
-as `matomo_url`/`admin_password_hash`, since this is a real SQLite
-dependency plenty of sites won't want. Every consumer route checks the
-flag *before* touching `Lib\Db` and 404s if it's off, so the feature has
-zero filesystem footprint (no `data/novaconium.sqlite`) when disabled —
-verified end-to-end, not assumed, since "off" silently still creating a
-database file would defeat the point.
+`class="nohighlight"` marks a `<pre><code>` block containing literal Twig
+syntax (`{% %}`/`{{ }}`) — highlight.js has no Twig grammar and a
+restricted auto-detect still always guesses wrong without this class. Any
+new Twig-syntax code sample needs it; PHP/Bash samples don't.

-**Reentrancy hazard, already hit once:** `ContentIndexer::reindex()`
-renders every routable page as part of the crawl — including `/search`
-itself, which is also a real page and also calls
-`ContentIndexer::ensureFresh()` from its own sidecar. Without a guard,
-crawling `/search` would trigger a nested `reindex()` call mid-transaction
-and fatal on a second `PDO::beginTransaction()`. `ContentIndexer` guards
-this with a `private static bool $indexing` flag, checked at the top of
-both `ensureFresh()` and `reindex()` — either no-ops while a reindex is
-already running on the call stack. Any future consumer route added under
-this mechanism inherits the same hazard for free (it'll also get crawled,
-and if its sidecar also calls `ensureFresh()`, the guard already covers
-it) — don't remove the flag thinking it's unnecessary.
+## Sass override quirk

-`reindex()` also forces `$_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']` to `'GET'` for the
-duration of the crawl (restoring whatever it was before, in a `finally`)
-— sidecars are expected to be side-effect-free for non-POST requests
-anyway (ordinary HTTP-safe-method hygiene), but this guarantees a lazy
-reindex triggered from within a POST request can never leak that POST
-into an unrelated page's sidecar purely because the crawler happened to
-render it. A crawl is a full truncate-and-rebuild inside one transaction,
-not incremental — simple and correct at this site's scale; don't add
-incremental/diffing logic without a real need for it.
+`novaconium/sass/main.sass` does `@use 'colors' as *` with **no**
+`_colors.sass` sibling in `novaconium/sass/` — on purpose. Dart Sass
+resolves a bare `@use` relative to the importing file's own directory
+*before* `--load-path`, so a sibling file would always win and silently
+defeat the `App/sass/_colors.sass` override. The framework default lives
+at `novaconium/sass/defaults/_colors.sass` instead. Don't move it back.

-**Standing rule: a vendored dependency's files go under `novaconium/vendor/`
-only if they're server-side (PHP, autoloaded, never fetched by a browser)
-— anything the browser has to fetch (`.js`, `.css`, images) has to live
-under `public/vendor/` instead, since `public/` is the only web-reachable
-directory (`novaconium/` isn't reachable at all — see `public/.htaccess`).**
-Twig lives under `novaconium/vendor/twig/` correctly, since it's pure PHP
-source. highlight.js (`/admin/docs/upgrading-highlightjs`,
-`public/vendor/highlightjs/`) is the first vendored dependency that's
-actually browser-servable, and originally almost got vendored to
-`novaconium/vendor/` too, following Twig's precedent blindly — that would
-have silently 404ed on every request, since nothing under `novaconium/`
-is ever served to a browser. This has a real consequence beyond just
-placement: `public/` is project-owned and untouched by the "Updating the
-framework" workflow (`rm -rf novaconium && cp -r <new-novaconium>` — see
-`/admin/docs/getting-started`), so a future framework release that bumps
-a `public/vendor/`-placed dependency will **not** carry that upgrade to
-an existing project automatically the way a `novaconium/vendor/` bump
-would — re-vendoring it is a separate manual step every time, documented
-per-dependency (see `/admin/docs/upgrading-highlightjs`).
+Every color rule in `main.sass` reads a CSS custom property (`var(--bg)`,
+etc.), never a Sass variable directly — required for the runtime dark/light
+toggle. Adding a color means adding both the plain and `-light` variable in
+**both** `_colors.sass` files and wiring it into both `:root` blocks.

-**`class="nohighlight"` marks a `<pre><code>` block whose content is
-literal Twig template syntax** (`{% %}`/`{{ }}`), so highlight.js's
-auto-detection (`novaconium/pages/_layout/syntax-highlight.twig`,
-restricted to `configure({ languages: ['php', 'bash', 'xml', 'css',
-'python', 'javascript', 'yaml', 'json', 'ini'] })` — `yaml`/`json`/`ini`
-are vendored as separate per-language files under
-`public/vendor/highlightjs/languages/`, not part of the core bundle like
-the other six; see `/admin/docs/upgrading-highlightjs`) doesn't
-force-match it to whichever configured language scores highest — Twig has
-no highlight.js grammar, and a restricted auto-detect still always
-returns its best guess among the allowed set, never "give up," so an
-unmarked Twig block would get colored *wrong*, not just left plain.
-Currently on:
-`novaconium/pages/admin/docs/{layouts,content-index,rss,sitemap,forms,seo}/index.twig`
-and `App/pages/blog/{style-guide,twig-syntax-guide}/index.twig`. A new
-Twig-syntax code sample added anywhere needs the same class — a PHP or
-Bash sample doesn't (auto-detection handles those reliably on its own,
-via strong signals like a leading `<?php`).
+## Input handling
+
+Sidecars read request data via `Lib\Input::post()`/`::get()`, not
+`$_POST`/`$_GET` directly (trims, strips tags/null bytes — XSS
+defense-in-depth, **not** SQL-injection protection; use PDO prepared
+statements via `Lib\Db::query()` for that, never string-interpolated SQL).
+Exception: fields needing an exact unmodified value (e.g. a password about
+to be hashed) read `$_POST` directly — see login/users sidecars.
+`Lib\Csrf::verify()` is called directly by a sidecar, not wired into
+`FormValidator`.

 ## Running it

@@ -360,116 +172,26 @@ php -S 127.0.0.1:8000 -t public public/router.php

 `public/router.php` is dev-only, mimics `public/.htaccess`. There is no
 test suite — verification is manual route-by-route (see
-`/admin/docs/design-notes`'s Verification section for the checklist used
-after any framework change).
-After testing, clear stray cache with `php novaconium/bin/clear-cache.php` or
-POST `/admin/clear-cache`, and remove anything written to `App/lib/` or
-`App/pages/` that was only for testing an override — nothing here is
-gitignored except `public/cache/*` and `novaconium/contact-log.txt`, so
-test debris left in `App/` will otherwise get committed or silently change
-site behavior for the next person.
+`/admin/docs/design-notes`'s Verification section). After testing, clear
+stray cache with `php novaconium/bin/clear-cache.php` and remove any
+test-only debris from `App/lib/`/`App/pages/` — nothing there is gitignored
+except `public/cache/*` and `novaconium/contact-log.txt`.

 ## Conventions worth knowing

- Reserved segments: any path segment starting with `_` (e.g. `_layout/`)
-  or literally named `404` is never routable — `Router::resolve()` 404s on
-  sight, don't try to serve content directly at those paths.
- Sidecars (`index.php`) return either an array (Twig context) or a
-  `Response` (redirect/json/xml/html — `novaconium/src/Response.php`).
-  `$params` (route captures) and `$cache` (the `Cache` instance, e.g. for
-  `$cache->clear()`) are both in scope automatically — see
+- Reserved segments: any path segment starting with `_` or literally named
+  `404` is never routable — `Router::resolve()` 404s on sight.
+- Sidecars (`index.php`) return an array (Twig context) or a `Response`.
+  `$params` and `$cache` are in scope automatically — see
  `novaconium/src/Renderer.php::runSidecar()`.
- No Composer — `novaconium/autoload.php` is a hand-rolled PSR-4 loader.
-  Adding a new framework-core class means adding it under `App\` in
-  `novaconium/src/`; a new `Lib\` class goes in `App/lib/` or
-  `novaconium/lib/` depending on whether it's project- or
-  framework-specific.
- `novaconium/bin/` holds standalone CLI entry points meant to be run
-  directly (`php novaconium/bin/<script>.php`) — distinct from
-  `bootstrap.php`/`autoload.php`/`config.php`, which are only ever
-  `require`'d, never invoked directly. `clear-cache.php` and
-  `create-static-page.php` (scaffolds a new page from the `/admin/docs/seo`
-  starter template) both live there; a new CLI tool goes there too.
- CSS is compiled from `novaconium/sass/main.sass` (indented syntax) to
-  `public/css/main.css`. `dart-sass` is installed in this environment
-  (Arch: `pacman -S dart-sass`) — after editing Sass source, run:
+- No Composer — `novaconium/autoload.php` is a hand-rolled PSR-4 loader. A
+  new framework-core class goes under `App\` in `novaconium/src/`; a new
+  `Lib\` class goes in `App/lib/` or `novaconium/lib/`.
+- `novaconium/bin/` holds standalone CLI entry points
+  (`php novaconium/bin/<script>.php`) — distinct from
+  `bootstrap.php`/`autoload.php`/`config.php`, which are only `require`'d.
+- CSS compiles from `novaconium/sass/main.sass` (indented syntax) to
+  `public/css/main.css`:
  `sass --load-path=App/sass --load-path=novaconium/sass/defaults --no-source-map novaconium/sass/main.sass public/css/main.css`
-  and commit the regenerated `public/css/main.css` (`--no-source-map`
-  avoids a stray `main.css.map` the project doesn't otherwise use). If
-  `sass` isn't available in whatever environment you're in, either run it
-  via Docker — `/admin/docs/styling` has a copy-pasteable
-  Dockerfile that installs the same standalone Dart Sass release used in
-  this environment (`1.101.0`) directly from GitHub, not via npm, plus
-  the `docker build`/`docker run` commands adjusted to this repo's paths
-  — or hand-edit both files in parallel and keep them in sync — that's
-  how the dark/teal theme and the homepage hero/animation
-  styling were originally written before `sass` was installed here.
- The Sass color palette follows the same App-over-novaconium override
-  pattern as pages/lib, but with a twist worth understanding before
-  touching it: `novaconium/sass/main.sass` does `@use 'colors' as *`, and
-  its own directory (`novaconium/sass/`) deliberately has **no**
-  `_colors.sass` sibling. Dart Sass resolves a bare `@use` relative to the
-  importing file's own directory *before* consulting `--load-path`
-  entries, so if `novaconium/sass/_colors.sass` existed next to
-  `main.sass`, it would always win regardless of load-path order —
-  silently defeating the override. Keeping the framework default at
-  `novaconium/sass/defaults/_colors.sass` (a different directory) forces
-  resolution through the load path, where `App/sass` (checked first) can
-  actually override it with `App/sass/_colors.sass`. Don't move
-  `defaults/_colors.sass` back next to `main.sass` — it was moved out on
-  purpose, and doing so reintroduces this bug.
- Every color rule in `main.sass` reads a CSS custom property
-  (`var(--bg)`, `var(--accent)`, etc.), never a Sass variable directly —
-  that indirection is what makes the dark/light theme toggle possible,
-  since Sass only runs at compile time and can't react to a runtime
-  choice on its own. The two `_colors.sass` files seed `:root` (dark,
-  the default) and `:root[data-theme="light"]` (via `-light`-suffixed
-  variables — `$bg-light`, `$accent-light`, etc., same files, same
-  override mechanism) once at compile time; the toggle button in
-  `novaconium/pages/_layout/nav.twig` flips the `data-theme` attribute on
-  `<html>` at runtime and persists it to `localStorage`.
-  `novaconium/pages/_layout/theme-init.twig` re-applies a saved choice
-  early in `<head>` (before the stylesheet link) to avoid a flash of the
-  wrong theme on load. If you add a new color to the palette, add both
-  the plain and `-light` variable in **both** `_colors.sass` files and
-  wire it into both `:root` blocks in `main.sass` — a color that's only
-  themed in one direction will look wrong after a toggle.
- Sidecars should read request data via `Lib\Input::post()`/`::get()`
-  (`novaconium/lib/Input.php`) rather than `$_POST`/`$_GET` directly — it
-  trims, strips tags, and strips null bytes automatically. This is
-  defense-in-depth against HTML/script injection, **not** SQL-injection
-  protection (no string transform makes input safe to concatenate into a
-  query — use PDO prepared statements once a database layer exists); don't
-  add an `sqlSafe()`-style method to `Input`. One documented exception: a
-  field needing an exact, unmodified value (e.g. a password about to be
-  hashed) should read `$_POST` directly instead — see
-  `novaconium/pages/admin/password-hash/index.php`. `Lib\Csrf`
-  (`novaconium/lib/Csrf.php`) is standalone session-token CSRF protection, not
-  wired into `FormValidator` — a sidecar calls `Csrf::verify()` directly.
-  It's the first thing in the framework to start a native PHP session (only
-  lazily, when a form actually calls it), which is otherwise unrelated to
-  `AdminAuth`'s own session-free Basic Auth.
- Don't use Twig's `|slice` filter on a **string** (as opposed to an
-  array) — it unconditionally calls PHP's `mb_substr()` with no fallback
-  (`novaconium/vendor/twig/src/Extension/CoreExtension.php`), which
-  hard-requires the `mbstring` extension and will fatal
-  (`Call to undefined function Twig\Extension\mb_substr()`) on a PHP
-  install without it — a real regression this project hit once already,
-  back when `/blog/hello-world` had a sidecar computing an excerpt this
-  way (see the footnote on `App/pages/blog/twig-syntax-guide/index.twig`
-  for the full story). Truncate strings in PHP instead, guarded with
-  `function_exists('mb_substr')` falling back to `substr()`, and pass the
-  already-truncated value into the template.
- Same class of bug, different filter: don't use Twig's `|escape('js')` (or
-  the `'js'` arg to `|e`) either — it calls `Twig\Runtime\mb_ord()`
-  (`novaconium/vendor/twig/src/Extension/EscaperExtension.php`), which
-  hard-requires `mbstring` the same way `|slice` does, and fatals
-  identically without it. Hit for real when
-  `novaconium/pages/_layout/code-copy.twig` used it to pass SVG icon
-  markup into an inline `<script>` as a JS string literal. Fixed by not
-  needing string-escaped markup in JS at all: render the markup as plain
-  HTML into a `<template>` element (default autoescaping, no mbstring
-  dependency) and read it in JS via that template element's `.innerHTML`
-  getter instead. Prefer that pattern — or a `data-*` attribute if the
-  value is plain text, not markup — over `|escape('js')` any time a Twig
-  value needs to reach JS.
+  — commit the regenerated CSS. See `/admin/docs/styling` for a Docker
+  fallback if `sass` isn't installed locally.
@@ -15,11 +15,11 @@ return [
    // 'matomo_url'     => 'https://matomo.example.com/',
    // 'matomo_site_id' => '1',

-    // Docs: /admin/docs/admin-auth — generate a hash with:
-    //   php -r "echo password_hash('yourpassword', PASSWORD_DEFAULT), PHP_EOL;"
-    // or use the built-in /admin/password-hash form.
-    // 'admin_username'      => 'admin',
-    // 'admin_password_hash' => '$2y$10$...',
+    // Docs: /admin/docs/admin-auth — session login for /admin/* against
+    // the SQLite-backed users table. After enabling, create the first user
+    // at /admin/users, or beforehand (safer) with:
+    //   php novaconium/bin/create-admin-user.php <username>
+    // 'admin_auth_enabled' => true,

    // Docs: /admin/docs/database — adds (or overrides) named Lib\Db
    // connections. This merges into db_connections by name rather than
@@ -38,9 +38,9 @@ return [
    //     ],
    // ],

-    // Docs: /admin/docs/drafts — requires admin_password_hash above to be
-    // set to actually gate anything; open access otherwise, same as the
-    // rest of /admin/*.
+    // Docs: /admin/docs/drafts — requires admin_auth_enabled above (and at
+    // least one user) to actually gate anything; open access otherwise,
+    // same as the rest of /admin/*.
    // 'draft_routes' => ['blog/upcoming-post'],

    // Docs: /admin/docs/content-index — powers /sitemap.xml, /search, and
@@ -51,4 +51,13 @@ return [
    // `php novaconium/bin/index-content.php` (e.g. from a deploy step):
    // 'content_index_enabled' => true,
    // 'content_index_auto'    => false,
+
+    // Docs: /admin/docs/admin-auth — email verification. Set all four to
+    // switch Lib\Mailer's transactional mail (verification links, not the
+    // contact form) from the zero-dependency log fallback to MailJet:
+    // 'mail_driver'        => 'mailjet',
+    // 'mail_from_email'    => 'noreply@example.com',
+    // 'mail_from_name'     => 'Example Site',
+    // 'mailjet_api_key'    => '...',
+    // 'mailjet_api_secret' => '...',
 ];
@@ -424,6 +424,24 @@ button:hover {
 .feature-card:nth-child(6) {
  animation-delay: 0.66s;
 }
+.feature-card:nth-child(7) {
+  animation-delay: 0.72s;
+}
+.feature-card:nth-child(8) {
+  animation-delay: 0.78s;
+}
+.feature-card:nth-child(9) {
+  animation-delay: 0.84s;
+}
+.feature-card:nth-child(10) {
+  animation-delay: 0.9s;
+}
+.feature-card:nth-child(11) {
+  animation-delay: 0.96s;
+}
+.feature-card:nth-child(12) {
+  animation-delay: 1.02s;
+}
 .feature-card h2 {
  font-size: 1.1rem;
  margin: 0 0 0.5rem;
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@

        <p>Everything the framework itself ships — default pages, default library classes, the root layout — lives under <code>novaconium/</code>, and can be overridden by placing a same-named file under <code>App/</code>, the only directory a site author is expected to touch. The same override mechanism covers configuration, too: any key in <code>novaconium/config.php</code> can be replaced piecemeal from <code>App/config.php</code>.</p>

-        <p>Beyond routing and templating, Novaconium ships with SEO meta tags (canonical links, Open Graph, Twitter Card), optional Matomo analytics with automatic 404 tracking, and an HTTP Basic Auth gate reusable across every <code>/admin/*</code> page — all off or sensible by default, and all documented at <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs">{{ icons.book() }}/admin/docs</a>, rendered live from this same running instance rather than a separate website.</p>
+        <p>Beyond routing and templating, Novaconium ships with SEO meta tags (canonical links, Open Graph, Twitter Card), optional Matomo analytics with automatic 404 tracking, and a multi-user admin login (with browser-based user management) covering every <code>/admin/*</code> page — all off or sensible by default, and all documented at <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs">{{ icons.book() }}/admin/docs</a>, rendered live from this same running instance rather than a separate website.</p>

        <p>It's a good fit for small marketing sites, blogs, and internal tools where a full framework would be overkill but a flat-file site generator alone falls short of real server-side logic. The source is on Git if you want to see how it's put together: <a class="icon-link" href="https://git.4lt.ca/4lt/novaconium">{{ icons.git() }}git.4lt.ca/4lt/novaconium</a>.</p>
    </article>
@@ -17,6 +17,13 @@
        </aside>
        <article>
            {% block blog_content %}{% endblock %}
+            {# Only pages whose sidecar opts in by returning a 'comments'
+               key get a thread — see /admin/docs/comments and
+               App/pages/blog/hello-world/index.php. A sidecar-less post
+               never has this key, so it's silently skipped. #}
+            {% if comments is defined %}
+                {% include '_partials/comments/thread.twig' %}
+            {% endif %}
        </article>
    </div>
 {% endblock %}
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+<?php
+
+// Demonstrates attaching Lib\Comments to a page — see /admin/docs/comments.
+// This is the one post under App/pages/blog/ with a sidecar, specifically
+// so it can carry a live comment thread; giving it one is what excludes
+// it from the static HTML cache (Renderer::render() only ever caches
+// sidecar-less pages) — every other post stays sidecar-less/cached and
+// has no thread, since blog/_layout/layout.twig only includes one when
+// 'comments' is present in the returned context.
+
+use App\AdminAuth;
+use App\Response;
+use Lib\Comments;
+use Lib\Csrf;
+use Lib\FormValidator;
+use Lib\Input;
+use Lib\SpamGuard;
+
+$pagePath = Comments::currentPagePath();
+$user = AdminAuth::currentUser();
+$spamGuard = new SpamGuard();
+$commentError = null;
+
+if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
+    if (!Csrf::verify(Input::post('csrf_token'))) {
+        return Response::redirect($pagePath . '?error=security');
+    }
+
+    if ($user === null) {
+        return Response::redirect($pagePath . '?error=login');
+    }
+
+    $body = Input::post('body', '');
+    $validator = (new FormValidator())
+        ->required($body, 'body', 'Enter a comment.')
+        ->maxLength($body, 'body', 2000, 'Comments are 2000 characters max.');
+
+    if ($validator->passes()) {
+        // Same "bot gets an identical response" reasoning as the contact
+        // form — see App/pages/contact/index.php. Only the insert is
+        // skipped for spam.
+        if (!$spamGuard->isSpam(Input::post())) {
+            Comments::create($pagePath, $user['id'], $body);
+        }
+
+        return Response::redirect($pagePath);
+    }
+
+    $commentError = $validator->errors()['body'] ?? null;
+}
+
+return [
+    'comments'     => Comments::forPage($pagePath),
+    'currentUser'  => $user,
+    'commentError' => $commentError,
+    'renderedAt'   => $spamGuard->renderedAt(),
+    'csrfField'    => Csrf::fieldName(),
+    'csrfToken'    => Csrf::token(),
+];
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+{% extends layout %}
+
+{% import '_layout/icons.twig' as icons %}
+
+{% block title %}Comments Demo{% endblock %}
+{% block description %}A worked example of Lib\Comments — this post has its own sidecar, unlike every other post here, specifically so it can carry a live comment thread.{% endblock %}
+
+{% block robots %}index, follow{% endblock %}
+{% block tags %}comments, meta{% endblock %}
+{% block canonical %}{{ request_path|default('/') }}{% endblock %}
+
+{% block og_type %}article{% endblock %}
+{% block og_title %}{{ block('title') }}{% endblock %}
+{% block og_description %}{{ block('description') }}{% endblock %}
+{% block og_url %}{{ block('canonical') }}{% endblock %}
+
+{% block twitter_card %}summary{% endblock %}
+{% block twitter_title %}{{ block('title') }}{% endblock %}
+{% block twitter_description %}{{ block('description') }}{% endblock %}
+
+{% block blog_content %}
+    <h1>Comments Demo</h1>
+
+    <p>Unlike every other post under <code>App/pages/blog/</code>, this one has its own <code>index.php</code> sidecar — <code>App/pages/blog/comments-demo/index.php</code> — which reads and writes a <code>comments</code> table via <code>Lib\Comments</code> and returns a <code>comments</code> key in its context. <code>App/pages/blog/_layout/layout.twig</code> only includes the comment-thread partial (<code>novaconium/pages/_partials/comments/thread.twig</code>) when that key is present, so this is the only post here with a thread below.</p>
+
+    <p>Having a sidecar means this page is never served from the static HTML cache the way its sidecar-less siblings are (see <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/caching">{{ icons.book() }}Static caching</a>) — an explicit, per-page tradeoff you accept the moment a page needs comments. See <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/comments">{{ icons.users() }}Comments</a> for the full write-up of <code>Lib\Comments</code>, including why comments are tied to real logged-in accounts rather than anonymous name/email fields, and why they're auto-approved with after-the-fact moderation at <code>/admin/comments</code> rather than a pending queue.</p>
+{% endblock %}
@@ -40,5 +40,17 @@ return [
            'excerpt'   => 'How syntax highlighting works on this site, with worked examples in bash, HTML, CSS, YAML, Python, JavaScript, JSON, and INI/env.',
            'published' => '2026-07-14',
        ],
+        [
+            'slug'      => 'novaconium-features',
+            'title'     => 'Novaconium Features',
+            'excerpt'   => 'A tour of what ships with novaconium out of the box: routing, sidecars, caching, admin auth, access control, media manager, database, search, RSS, and more.',
+            'published' => '2026-07-15',
+        ],
+        [
+            'slug'      => 'comments-demo',
+            'title'     => 'Comments Demo',
+            'excerpt'   => 'A worked example of Lib\\Comments — this post has its own sidecar, unlike every other post here, specifically so it can carry a live comment thread.',
+            'published' => '2026-07-15',
+        ],
    ],
 ];
@@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
+{% extends layout %}
+
+{% import '_layout/icons.twig' as icons %}
+
+{% block title %}Novaconium Features{% endblock %}
+{% block description %}A tour of what ships with novaconium out of the box: routing, sidecars, caching, admin auth, access control, media manager, database, search, RSS, and more.{% endblock %}
+
+{% block robots %}index, follow{% endblock %}
+{% block tags %}features, meta{% endblock %}
+{% block canonical %}{{ request_path|default('/') }}{% endblock %}
+
+{% block og_type %}article{% endblock %}
+{% block og_title %}{{ block('title') }}{% endblock %}
+{% block og_description %}{{ block('description') }}{% endblock %}
+{% block og_url %}{{ block('canonical') }}{% endblock %}
+
+{% block twitter_card %}summary{% endblock %}
+{% block twitter_title %}{{ block('title') }}{% endblock %}
+{% block twitter_description %}{{ block('description') }}{% endblock %}
+
+{% block blog_content %}
+    <h1>Novaconium Features</h1>
+
+    <p>A tour of what ships with novaconium out of the box. Every topic below has a full writeup at <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs">{{ icons.book() }}/admin/docs</a> on any running instance — this post is the overview.</p>
+
+    <ul>
+        <li><strong>File-based routing</strong> — a directory under <code>App/pages/</code> <em>is</em> a route (Hugo-style page bundles). No route table to maintain.</li>
+        <li><strong><code>[param]</code> segments</strong> — a directory literally named <code>[param]</code> (e.g. <code>App/pages/products/[id]/</code>) captures any single URL segment into <code>$params['param']</code> for clean URLs, no query strings.</li>
+        <li><strong>Optional PHP "sidecars"</strong> — drop an <code>index.php</code> next to any <code>index.twig</code> to supply Twig context data, or return a <code>Response</code> (redirect/JSON/XML/HTML) to short-circuit templating entirely.</li>
+        <li><strong>Static caching, zero config</strong> — sidecar-less pages render once and are written to <code>public/cache/</code>; <code>.htaccess</code> serves the cached file directly on every later hit, skipping PHP and Twig entirely.</li>
+        <li><strong>Override-by-path</strong> — <code>App/</code> (your project) is checked before <code>novaconium/</code> (the framework defaults) for every page, layout, <code>Lib\</code> class, and even the Sass color palette (<code>App/sass/_colors.sass</code>). Drop a file at the same relative path to override it; nothing needs duplicating to get a working site.</li>
+        <li><strong>Layout inheritance</strong> — <code>_layout/layout.twig</code> directories are resolved by walking upward from the matched page, so you can override the layout for a whole subtree.</li>
+        <li><strong>SEO boilerplate out of the box</strong> — the default layout ships meta description, canonical link, robots, Open Graph, and Twitter Card tags, all overridable per-page via Twig blocks.</li>
+        <li><strong>Built-in Matomo analytics</strong> — set <code>matomo_url</code> and <code>matomo_site_id</code> in <code>App/config.php</code> to enable tracking site-wide, including automatic 404 tracking. Off by default.</li>
+        <li><strong>Admin authentication</strong> — gate every <code>/admin/*</code> route behind a session login with multi-user management: a SQLite-backed <code>users</code> table, <code>/admin/login</code>/<code>/admin/logout</code>, and an <code>/admin/users</code> page to create, disable, delete, group, promote/demote, and change the email or password of accounts (plus a <code>novaconium/bin/create-admin-user.php</code> CLI for the first user or deploy scripts). Two roles: the first user created is the admin; everyone after is a registered user with an optional group. Every account after the first must verify its email (a link sent via <code>Lib\Mailer</code>, logged to a file by default or sent through MailJet if configured) before it can log in. Enabled with a single <code>admin_auth_enabled</code> flag in <code>App/config.php</code>; off by default.</li>
+        <li><strong>Access control</strong> — assign a page (or a section, one line per page) to a user or group from its sidecar: <code>Access::require('group:members')</code> returns <code>null</code> or a ready-made <code>Response</code> (login redirect with a return path, or a 404 for the wrong account). Public is the default — a sidecar that never calls it is untouched, and static (sidecar-less, cached) pages are always public by construction.</li>
+        <li><strong>Draft pages</strong> — list a route under <code>draft_routes</code> in <code>App/config.php</code> to make it visible only to an authenticated admin; anyone else gets a plain 404, not a login prompt.</li>
+        <li><strong>Media manager</strong> — <code>/admin/media</code>, an upload/browse/delete UI for files under <code>public/uploads/</code>, covered by the existing <code>/admin/*</code> auth gate with no separate flag needed. Extension allowlist and max upload size are configurable.</li>
+        <li><strong>Comments</strong> — <code>Lib\Comments</code>, a reusable comment thread any page can attach to itself via its own sidecar (see <code>App/pages/blog/comments-demo/</code>). Tied to real logged-in accounts, not anonymous name/email fields; auto-approved on submission with after-the-fact hide/delete moderation at <code>/admin/comments</code>.</li>
+        <li><strong>Dark/light theme toggle</strong> — a nav button flips a <code>data-theme</code> attribute (persisted to <code>localStorage</code>) that swaps every color via CSS custom properties.</li>
+        <li><strong>Self-hosted spam prevention &amp; form validation</strong> — <code>Lib\SpamGuard</code> (honeypot + submission-timing check, no external CAPTCHA), <code>Lib\FormValidator</code>, and <code>Lib\Validate</code>, demonstrated on the contact form.</li>
+        <li><strong>Form security by default</strong> — <code>Lib\Input</code> (cleaning accessor for <code>$_POST</code>/<code>$_GET</code>) and <code>Lib\Csrf</code> (standalone session-token CSRF protection), wired into the contact form and every admin form.</li>
+        <li><strong>SQLite/MySQL database, zero setup</strong> — <code>Lib\Db</code>, a thin PDO wrapper (no ORM) supporting multiple named connections open at once, each with its own plain-SQL migration convention, applied automatically on first use or via <code>php novaconium/bin/migrate.php</code>.</li>
+        <li><strong>Sessions with flash data</strong> — <code>Lib\Session</code>, a thin wrapper around native PHP sessions with CodeIgniter-style flash values for post/redirect/GET flows.</li>
+        <li><strong>Content index: sitemap, search, tags</strong> — <code>/sitemap.xml</code>, full-text <code>/search</code> (SQLite FTS5), and blog tag browsing all share one crawler. Off by default; reindexes lazily on demand or via <code>php novaconium/bin/index-content.php</code>.</li>
+        <li><strong>Blog RSS feed</strong> — <code>/blog/feed</code>, built from the same hand-written post list <code>App/pages/blog/index.php</code> itself renders from, so it works with no database at all.</li>
+        <li><strong>Syntax-highlighted code blocks</strong> — vendored <a href="https://highlightjs.org/">highlight.js</a> colors PHP/Bash/HTML code blocks site-wide, auto-detected with no per-block markup.</li>
+        <li><strong>No build step, no Composer</strong> — clone it, point Apache (or <code>php -S</code>) at <code>public/</code>, and it runs. Twig is vendored as source.</li>
+    </ul>
+
+    <p>Full details on every one of these live at <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs">{{ icons.book() }}/admin/docs</a>, rendered live from this same running instance — routing, sidecars, libraries, database, session, content index, XML sitemap, RSS feeds, layouts, static caching, SEO, Matomo, admin authentication, access control, draft pages, media manager, styling, project layout, and third-party notices.</p>
+{% endblock %}
@@ -56,8 +56,36 @@
            <p>Meta description, canonical links, Open Graph, and Twitter Card tags ship by default, all overridable per page.</p>
        </article>
        <article class="feature-card">
-            <h2>Matomo &amp; admin auth</h2>
-            <p>Built-in analytics tracking and an HTTP Basic Auth gate for <code>/admin/*</code> — both off until you turn them on in <code>App/config.php</code>.</p>
+            <h2>Admin authentication</h2>
+            <p>A multi-user session login gates every <code>/admin/*</code> route, with email verification for new accounts. Off by default in <code>App/config.php</code>.</p>
+        </article>
+        <article class="feature-card">
+            <h2>Access control &amp; drafts</h2>
+            <p>Gate a page to a user or group with one <code>Lib\Access</code> call in its sidecar, or preview an unfinished page as an admin-only draft.</p>
+        </article>
+        <article class="feature-card">
+            <h2>Media manager &amp; comments</h2>
+            <p>An upload/browse/delete UI at <code>/admin/media</code>, and <code>Lib\Comments</code> for a moderated comment thread on any page.</p>
+        </article>
+        <article class="feature-card">
+            <h2>Database, zero setup</h2>
+            <p><code>Lib\Db</code> wraps PDO for SQLite or MySQL, multiple named connections at once, migrating automatically on first use.</p>
+        </article>
+        <article class="feature-card">
+            <h2>Search, sitemap &amp; tags</h2>
+            <p>One content index backs full-text <code>/search</code>, <code>/sitemap.xml</code>, and blog tag browsing — reindexed lazily, no extra steps.</p>
+        </article>
+        <article class="feature-card">
+            <h2>Blog RSS feed</h2>
+            <p><code>/blog/feed</code> is built from the same hand-written post list <code>App/pages/blog/index.php</code> renders from — no database required.</p>
+        </article>
+        <article class="feature-card">
+            <h2>Matomo &amp; dark/light theme</h2>
+            <p>Built-in analytics tracking, off by default, alongside a nav toggle that swaps every color via CSS custom properties.</p>
+        </article>
+        <article class="feature-card">
+            <h2>Form security by default</h2>
+            <p><code>Lib\Csrf</code>, <code>Lib\SpamGuard</code>'s honeypot check, and cleaning input accessors — wired into the contact form and every admin form.</p>
        </article>
        <article class="feature-card">
            <h2>Override anything</h2>
@@ -1 +1,6 @@
+# Agent permissions
+
+- Only run `git` commands with the user's explicit permission for that specific command/action.
+- Never run `docker` commands (build, compose up, run, etc.) — leave all Docker execution to the user.
+
@AGENTS.md
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+# Official PHP + Apache image for running novaconium in production.
+# See /admin/docs/docker for the bind-mounted paths, docker-entrypoint.sh's
+# seeding/permissions behavior, and optional MySQL wiring.
+
+# Build: docker build --no-cache -t novaconium:latest .
+
+# Fixed: full official image tag (was missing "php:")
+FROM php:8.5.8-apache-trixie
+
+# Pin to a specific tag (not a floating "php:apache") so a rebuild months
+# from now installs the same PHP/Apache/Debian base instead of whatever
+# happens to be current that day. Bump the tag above deliberately (e.g. to
+# pick up a PHP security release), not as a side effect of an unrelated
+# rebuild.
+
+RUN apt-get update \
+    && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends libsqlite3-dev \
+    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* \
+    && docker-php-ext-install pdo_sqlite pdo_mysql \
+    && a2enmod rewrite
+
+# Point DocumentRoot at public/ and allow .htaccess overrides there.
+RUN sed -ri -e 's#/var/www/html#/var/www/html/public#g' \
+      /etc/apache2/sites-available/*.conf \
+    && sed -ri -e '/<Directory \/var\/www\/>/,/<\/Directory>/ s/AllowOverride None/AllowOverride All/' \
+      /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
+
+WORKDIR /var/www/html
+
+# Copy application files
+COPY novaconium/ ./novaconium/
+COPY public/ ./public/
+COPY App/ ./App/
+
+# Pristine copy of the starter App/, kept outside /var/www/html so
+# docker-entrypoint.sh can reseed a bind-mounted (but empty/missing) App/ on
+# first start — see docker-entrypoint.sh and /admin/docs/docker.
+RUN cp -a App/ /opt/novaconium-app-default/
+
+# Runtime-writable paths — cache/uploads/App/data are bind-mounted from the
+# host by docker-compose.yml, so docker-entrypoint.sh re-chowns them at
+# every container start (a build-time chown only survives on the image
+# layer, not on a host bind mount). This chown still covers a fresh
+# container with no bind mounts configured at all.
+RUN mkdir -p public/cache public/uploads data \
+    && touch novaconium/contact-log.txt \
+    && chown -R www-data:www-data public/cache public/uploads data App novaconium/contact-log.txt
+
+COPY docker-entrypoint.sh /usr/local/bin/docker-entrypoint.sh
+RUN chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-entrypoint.sh
+
+EXPOSE 80
+
+ENTRYPOINT ["docker-entrypoint.sh"]
+CMD ["apache2-foreground"]
@@ -1,120 +1,53 @@
-# novaconium
+![Novaconium PHP](https://i.4lt.ca/git/novaconium-logo.png)

-A tiny, Hugo-flavored PHP micro-framework. Routes are directories on disk, pages render with [Twig](https://twig.symfony.com/), and any page that needs real logic gets an optional PHP "sidecar" file. Pages without a sidecar are pre-rendered once and served as static HTML straight from Apache afterwards. No Composer — Twig is vendored directly into the repo as plain source files.
+A Hugo-flavored PHP framework. Routes are directories on disk, pages render with [Twig](https://twig.symfony.com/), and any page that needs real logic gets an optional PHP "sidecar" file. Pages without a sidecar are pre-rendered once and served as static HTML straight from Apache afterwards.

-## Features
-
- **File-based routing** — a directory under `App/pages/` *is* a route (Hugo-style page bundles). No route table to maintain.
- **`[param]` segments** — a directory literally named `[param]` (e.g. `App/pages/products/[id]/`) captures any single URL segment into `$params['param']` for clean URLs, no query strings.
- **Optional PHP "sidecars"** — drop an `index.php` next to any `index.twig` to supply Twig context data, or return a `Response` (redirect/JSON/XML/HTML) to short-circuit templating entirely.
- **Static caching, zero config** — sidecar-less pages render once and are written to `public/cache/`; `.htaccess` serves the cached file directly on every later hit, skipping PHP and Twig entirely.
- **Override-by-path** — `App/` (your project) is checked before `novaconium/` (the framework defaults) for every page, layout, `Lib\` class, and even the Sass color palette (`App/sass/_colors.sass`). Drop a file at the same relative path to override it; nothing needs duplicating to get a working site.
- **Layout inheritance** — `_layout/layout.twig` directories are resolved by walking upward from the matched page, so you can override the layout for a whole subtree.
- **SEO boilerplate out of the box** — the default layout ships meta description, canonical link, robots, Open Graph, and Twitter Card tags, all overridable per-page via Twig blocks.
- **Built-in Matomo analytics** — set `matomo_url` and `matomo_site_id` in `App/config.php` to enable tracking site-wide, including automatic 404 tracking. Off by default.
- **Admin authentication** — gate every `/admin/*` route behind HTTP Basic Auth by setting `admin_username`/`admin_password_hash` in `App/config.php`; reusable for any admin page a project adds later, with a `/admin/logout` link to clear cached credentials and a built-in `/admin/password-hash` form so generating the hash doesn't require the CLI. Off by default.
- **Draft pages** — list a route under `draft_routes` in `App/config.php` to make it visible only to an authenticated admin; anyone else gets a plain 404, not a login prompt. Reuses the admin auth check directly, and is excluded from static caching so a cached copy can't leak the draft to the public. See `/admin/docs/drafts`.
- **Dark/light theme toggle** — a nav button flips a `data-theme` attribute (persisted to `localStorage`) that swaps every color via CSS custom properties; both palettes live in `App/sass/_colors.sass`, same override mechanism as everything else.
- **Self-hosted spam prevention & form validation** — `Lib\SpamGuard`, a reusable class for any form: a CSS-hidden honeypot field plus a submission-timing check, no external CAPTCHA service, site key, or outbound API call. Pairs with `Lib\FormValidator` (accumulating required-field/email/length checks) and `Lib\Validate` (the underlying validation primitives — email, length, phone, postal/zip, spam-word checks). All three ship in `novaconium/lib/`, demonstrated on the contact form.
- **Form security by default** — `Lib\Input`, a cleaning accessor for `$_POST`/`$_GET` (defense-in-depth against HTML/script injection, not a substitute for parameterized queries), and `Lib\Csrf`, standalone session-token CSRF protection called directly from a sidecar. Both ship in `novaconium/lib/`, wired into the contact form, `/admin/clear-cache`, and `/admin/password-hash`.
- **SQLite/MySQL database, zero setup** — `Lib\Db`, a thin PDO wrapper (no ORM) supporting multiple named connections open at once — e.g. this site's own SQLite data plus a MySQL connection to a legacy database, usable in the same sidecar — each with its own plain-SQL migration convention, applied automatically on first use or via `php novaconium/bin/migrate.php`. SQLite data lives in a project-owned top-level `data/` directory, outside both `public/` and `novaconium/`. See `/admin/docs/database`.
- **Sessions with flash data** — `Lib\Session`, a thin wrapper around native PHP sessions with CodeIgniter-style flash values (set now, readable on exactly the next request) for post/redirect/GET flows without a query-string flag. Lazy-start, same mechanism `Lib\Csrf` already uses. See `/admin/docs/session`.
- **Content index: sitemap, search, tags** — `/sitemap.xml`, full-text `/search` (SQLite FTS5), and blog tag browsing all share one crawler that renders every page and harvests `keywords`/`tags`/`changefreq`/`priority` Twig blocks via Twig's own `renderBlock()` — no front-matter, no separate metadata files. Off by default (depends on SQLite); reindexes lazily on demand or via `php novaconium/bin/index-content.php`. See `/admin/docs/content-index`.
- **Blog RSS feed** — `/blog/feed`, built from the same hand-written post list `App/pages/blog/index.php` itself renders from, so it works with no database at all. `Lib\Rss` (a small RSS 2.0 envelope builder) also backs a per-tag feed, `/blog/tag/<tag>/feed`, once the content index above is enabled. Auto-discovered via a `<link rel="alternate">` on `/blog/*` pages.
- **Syntax-highlighted code blocks** — vendored [highlight.js](https://highlightjs.org/) colors PHP/Bash/HTML code blocks site-wide, auto-detected with no per-block markup, swapping between dark (`ir-black`) and light (`github`) themes along with the existing dark/light toggle. Twig-syntax samples (which highlight.js can't parse) are left plain rather than colored wrong. See `/admin/docs/upgrading-highlightjs`.
- **No build step, no Composer** — clone it, point Apache (or `php -S`) at `public/`, and it runs. Twig is vendored as source; see `/admin/docs/upgrading-twig` for upgrading it.
+For a full tour of what's included — routing, sidecars, caching, admin auth, access control, media manager, database, search, RSS, and more — see the [Novaconium Features](http://127.0.0.1:8000/blog/novaconium-features) post once the site is running, or `/admin/docs` (see Documentation below).

 ## Getting started

-**Requirements:** PHP 8.1+ (uses `readonly` constructor-promoted properties) with the `pdo_sqlite` extension (bundled with PHP, just needs to be enabled — no separate install; add `pdo_mysql` too if using a MySQL connection), and, for production, Apache with `mod_rewrite` and `AllowOverride All`. The content index's search (`/admin/docs/content-index`) additionally needs SQLite's FTS5 extension, bundled with `pdo_sqlite` on virtually every modern PHP build — only relevant if `content_index_enabled` is turned on.
+### Requirements: 

-### Run it locally (no Apache needed)
+PHP 8.1+ (uses `readonly` constructor-promoted properties) and, for production, Apache with `mod_rewrite` and `AllowOverride All`. A few optional features (database, content index/search, admin authentication) need the `pdo_sqlite` extension — see `/admin/docs` for details once running.
+
+### Development
+
+Run it locally, no Apache needed:

 ```
 php -S 127.0.0.1:8000 -t public public/router.php
 ```

-`public/router.php` is a dev-only script that mimics the `.htaccess` rules (canonical redirects + static cache lookup) so you can develop without Apache. It is never used in production — Apache reads `public/.htaccess` directly.
+Visit `http://127.0.0.1:8000/` — click around the example pages, then open `http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs` for the complete documentation, rendered live from this same instance.

-Visit `http://127.0.0.1:8000/` for the static home page, then click around — `/about`, `/blog/hello-world`, `/contact`, and `/admin` (cache clearing + these same docs, rendered live) are all included as working examples.
-
-### Deploy on Apache
-
-Point the vhost's document root at `public/`, make sure `mod_rewrite` is enabled and `AllowOverride All` is set for that directory so `public/.htaccess` takes effect, and it just works — no build step required.
-
-### Starting a new project
-
-Clone this repo and drop its Git history — no Composer scaffold or installer:
+### Production

 ```
-git clone --depth 1 <novaconium-repo-url> my-new-project
-cd my-new-project
-rm -rf .git && git init && git add -A && git commit -m "Initial commit from novaconium template"
+#docker buildx build --no-cache -t 4lights/novaconium:2.0.0-beta -t 4lights/corxn:latest --load .
+#docker login -u <username>
+#docker push 4lights/novaconium:2.0.0
+#docker push 4lights/novaconium:latest
+
+docker buildx build --no-cache -t 4lights/novaconium:2.0.0-beta --load .
+docker login git.4lt.ca -u nick
+docker pull git.4lt.ca/4lt/novaconium:2.0.0-beta
+
+docker compose up -d
+root@b2c4133264c6:/var/www/html# php novaconium/bin/create-admin-user.php nick c@nickyeoman.com
 ```

-Then replace the example content under `App/pages/` with your own; leave `novaconium/` and `public/` alone.
+### Webmasters

-### Updating the framework
-
-Since the framework core lives entirely under `novaconium/`, pick up a new release by overwriting just that directory against a tag and committing the diff:
-
-```
-git clone --depth 1 --branch <release-tag> <novaconium-repo-url> /tmp/nova-update
-rm -rf novaconium && cp -r /tmp/nova-update/novaconium ./novaconium && rm -rf /tmp/nova-update
-git add novaconium && git commit -m "Update novaconium framework to <release-tag>"
-```
-
-Safe by construction — `App/` always overrides `novaconium/`, so an update can't clobber project customizations. See [Getting started](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/getting-started) for the full write-up.
-
-### Add a page
-
-Create a directory under `App/pages/` with an `index.twig` — the directory path *is* the URL:
-
-```
-App/pages/pricing/index.twig   ->   /pricing
-```
-
-Add an `index.php` next to it if the page needs data or logic. See [Sidecars](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/sidecars) in the docs for the full contract, or [SEO](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/seo) for a ready-to-paste starter template with every overridable block — or skip the copy-paste and scaffold it:
-
-```
-php novaconium/bin/create-static-page.php blog/my-new-post
-```
+- Clone this repo.
+- docker build: ``` docker build -t novaconium . ```
+- docker compose up -d

 ## Documentation

-The full framework documentation — routing, sidecars, libraries, database, session, content index, XML sitemap, RSS feeds, layouts, static caching, SEO, Matomo analytics, admin authentication, draft pages, styling, project layout, and third-party notices — lives at `/admin/docs` on any running instance (so it travels with the code, no internet connection needed). Highlights:
-
- [Getting started](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/getting-started)
- [Routing](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/routing)
- [Sidecars](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/sidecars)
- [Libraries](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/libraries)
- [Database](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/database)
- [Session](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/session)
- [Content index](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/content-index)
- [XML sitemap](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/sitemap)
- [RSS feeds](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/rss)
- [Layouts](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/layouts)
- [Static caching](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/caching)
- [SEO](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/seo)
- [Matomo](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/matomo)
- [Admin authentication](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/admin-auth)
- [Draft pages](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/drafts)
- [Styling](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/styling)
- [Project layout](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/project-layout)
- [Third-party](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/third-party)
+The full framework documentation lives inside the framework itself, at `/admin/docs` on any running instance — so it travels with the code, no internet connection needed. That's the canonical reference for everything: requirements, running locally, deploying on Apache or Docker, starting a new project, updating the framework, adding a page, routing, sidecars, libraries, database, session, content index, XML sitemap, RSS feeds, layouts, static caching, SEO, Matomo analytics, admin authentication, access control, draft pages, media manager, styling, and project layout.

 `AGENTS.md` is the short, agent-facing version for coding assistants working in this repo, and `novaconium/ISSUES.md` is the roadmap/backlog.

-## Project layout
-
-```
-App/            your project — pages/ (routes), lib/ (Lib\ classes), sass/ (color overrides) — the only directory you're expected to edit
-public/         Apache document root — front controller, .htaccess, static cache, compiled CSS
-novaconium/     the framework itself — router, renderer, vendored Twig, default pages/lib/sass — not edited per-project
-```
-
-See [Project layout](http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/docs/project-layout) for the full tree with every file explained.
-
 ## Third-party

 [Twig](https://twig.symfony.com/) is vendored in source form under `novaconium/vendor/twig/` (no Composer — see `/admin/docs/upgrading-twig` for how to upgrade it). It's BSD-3-Clause licensed; the full license text ships alongside it at `novaconium/vendor/twig/LICENSE`.
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+services:
+  web:
+    image: ${NOVACONIUM_IMAGE:-4lights/novaconium:2.0.0-beta}
+    ports:
+      - "8080:80"
+    volumes:
+      - ${PROJECT_PATH:-/data}:/var/www/html/App
+      - ${PROJECT_PATH:-/data}/css:/var/www/html/public/css
+      - ${VOL_PATH:-/data}/novaconium/cache:/var/www/html/public/cache
+      - ${VOL_PATH:-/data}/novaconium/uploads:/var/www/html/public/uploads
+      - ${VOL_PATH:-/data}/novaconium/data:/var/www/html/data
+
+  # Optional — only needed if App/config.php adds a db_connections entry
+  # with driver: mysql. See /admin/docs/database.
+  # db:
+  #   image: mysql:8
+  #   environment:
+  #     MYSQL_DATABASE: novaconium
+  #     MYSQL_USER: novaconium
+  #     MYSQL_PASSWORD: change-me
+  #     MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: change-me
+  #   volumes:
+  #     - mysql-data:/var/lib/mysql
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+# Runs once per container start, before Apache — see /admin/docs/docker.
+#
+# docker-compose.yml bind-mounts App/, public/cache/, public/uploads/, and
+# data/ from the host so a project's content/db survive a rebuild and can be
+# edited without one. Two problems a plain COPY-at-build-time image can't
+# solve on its own:
+#
+#   1. A bind mount to an empty (or not-yet-created) host directory shadows
+#      whatever COPY baked into that path in the image, replacing it with
+#      nothing — Docker does not seed bind mounts from image content the way
+#      it seeds a fresh named volume. App/ is only ever the docs/starter
+#      content wanted on host: seed it from the pristine copy stashed
+#      at build time (/opt/novaconium-app-default) if the mounted dir is
+#      empty, so `docker compose up` produces a working site on a first run
+#      with no manual copy step.
+#   2. A bind-mounted host directory keeps the host's ownership, not the
+#      image's — the build-time `chown` in the Dockerfile never applies to
+#      it. Re-chown the mounted paths to the Apache worker user on every
+#      start so they're writable regardless of the host-side UID/GID.
+set -e
+
+if [ -z "$(ls -A /var/www/html/App 2>/dev/null)" ]; then
+    cp -a /opt/novaconium-app-default/. /var/www/html/App/
+fi
+
+chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/public/cache /var/www/html/public/uploads /var/www/html/App /var/www/html/data
+
+exec "$@"
@@ -20,9 +20,14 @@ tracker issue is filed, for things that are still just an idea.
  be actionable/discussed, not necessarily when the idea is first written
  down here.
 - When work begins, move the item to **In Progress**.
- When shipped, move it to **Done**, keep the entry (don't delete), and add
-  a `Shipped:` line with the date and, once committed, the commit/PR
-  reference.
+- When shipped, move it to **Done** and add a `Shipped:` line with the date
+  and, once committed, the commit/PR reference. Keep a Done entry only as
+  long as it's referenced by (a `Depends on:`, or otherwise relevant
+  context for) something still in Backlog/In Progress — once nothing
+  active points back to it, delete it rather than letting this file grow
+  without bound. This is a change from the file's earlier "never delete"
+  policy; if a stale Done entry's history is ever needed again, it's in
+  git history / the linked tracker issue.
 - If something is decided against, move it to **Won't Do** with a `Reason:`
  line rather than deleting it — the "why not" is worth keeping. Close the
  corresponding tracker issue with a link back to that entry.
@@ -51,132 +56,98 @@ expected vs. actual behavior. For features, include the motivating use case.>

 ## Backlog

-Suggested build order (foundations first, since admin login builds on
-three of the others):
+Suggested build order (foundations first):

-1. **Media/file manager** — no hard dependency; usable standalone, though
-   best gated behind admin login once that exists.
-2. **Admin login & user management** — SQLite groundwork and session
-   handling it needed are both done; ready to build.
-3. **In-house comments** — needs admin login & user management (comments
-   are tied to real user accounts, not anonymous); build right after it.
-4. **Ecommerce functionality** — needs admin login & user management
-   (order/product admin, and customer accounts); SQLite groundwork and
-   session handling (cart) it needed are both done.
-5. **Paywall functionality** — needs everything Ecommerce needs, plus
-   Ecommerce itself for the recurring-billing/payment-gateway plumbing;
-   build after it rather than in parallel — also now has a concrete
-   precedent to follow for the "gated content must skip the static cache"
-   part of its design (see Draft pages (admin-only preview) in Done, and
-   the caching/auth standing rule in `AGENTS.md`), which was still an open
-   question when this entry was originally written.
+1. **Ecommerce: Lib\Money** — no dependencies, and the other two Ecommerce
+   pieces below both need it.
+2. **Ecommerce: Lib\Cart** — needs Lib\Money.
+3. **Ecommerce: payment gateway helper** — needs Lib\Money; independent of
+   Lib\Cart, so it could also go before it.
+4. **Paywall functionality** — needs the payment gateway helper above for
+   its recurring-billing/payment plumbing; build after it rather than in
+   parallel — also now has a concrete precedent to follow for the "gated
+   content must skip the static cache" part of its design (see Draft
+   pages (admin-only preview) in Done, and the caching/auth standing rule
+   in `AGENTS.md`), which was still an open question when this entry was
+   originally written.

-MySQL support, Session handling (with flash sessions), Draft pages
-(admin-only preview), Blog tags/categories + Internal search + XML
-sitemap (shipped together as one content index — see Done), Blog RSS
-feed, and Syntax highlighting on code blocks all shipped 2026-07-14.
+Session handling (with flash sessions), Draft pages (admin-only preview),
+and Admin login & user management all shipped (see Done) — every open
+entry above still depends on at least one of them. The original single
+"Ecommerce functionality" entry was scoped down into the three
+Lib\-helper pieces above on 2026-07-15 — see Lib\Money's entry for why.

 See **Won't Do** below for 404 tracking, dropped in favor of Matomo.

-### Media/file manager
-
- **Type:** Feature
- **Status:** Backlog
- **Priority:** Medium
- **Added:** 2026-07-12
-
-An upload/browse/delete UI for media (images, PDFs, etc.) so sidecars and
-Twig templates have a consistent place to reference uploaded files from
-— e.g. a blog post's header image — instead of authors manually copying
-files into `public/`. Likely a new `/admin/media` page — already covered
-by the admin authentication gate (every `/admin/*` route) the moment it's
-added, no extra wiring needed — backed by a plain directory under
-`public/uploads/` rather than a database (files are already static
-assets; no need for SQLite here unless metadata like alt text/captions is
-wanted later, in which case that part could ride on SQLite groundwork).
-Needs basic safety handling: extension allowlist, filename sanitization,
-and a max upload size, since this is a file-write surface.
-
-### Admin login & user management
-
- **Type:** Feature
- **Status:** Backlog
- **Priority:** Medium
- **Depends on:** SQLite groundwork (Done), Session handling (with flash sessions) (Done)
- **Added:** 2026-07-12
-
-A single-user HTTP Basic Auth stopgap now gates `/admin/*`
-(`novaconium/src/AdminAuth.php`, `admin_username`/`admin_password_hash` in
-`App/config.php` — see `/admin/docs/admin-auth`), so `/admin` is no longer
-wide open by default choice. This entry is the real, larger replacement:
-multiple accounts, a user store (the SQLite groundwork above — a `users`
-table with hashed passwords via `password_hash()`/`password_verify()`, no
-external auth library), proper sessions instead of Basic Auth (rides on
-session handling above), and basic user management (create/disable a
-user, change password). Ship this by replacing `AdminAuth::requireLogin()`
-with the new mechanism, not layering on top of it.
-
-### In-house comments
-
- **Type:** Feature
- **Status:** Backlog
- **Priority:** Medium
- **Depends on:** Admin login & user management, SQLite groundwork (Done)
- **Added:** 2026-07-14
-
-A self-hosted comments library — no third-party service (Disqus,
-Commento, etc.) — a `Lib\` class any sidecar can call to attach comments
-to any page, not just blog posts, the same way `Lib\SpamGuard`/
-`Lib\FormValidator` are reusable across any form rather than hardcoded to
-the contact page. Comments tied to a real user account rather than
-anonymous name/email fields, which is why this rides on Admin login &
-user management rather than SQLite groundwork alone — needs that
-feature's user store to exist first. Likely a `comments` table
-(route/user/body/created_at/approved or similar — a migration under
-`App/migrations/`, following the two-root convention documented in
-`/admin/docs/database`) plus a small set of sidecar-callable methods
-(list comments for a route, submit one, moderate one). Needs a decision
-on moderation model (auto-approve vs. admin-approval queue, reusing the
-`/admin/*` auth gate for the moderation UI) and on spam handling (reuse
-`Lib\SpamGuard`'s honeypot/timing approach rather than inventing a second
-mechanism, consistent with how CSRF protection already works — see
-`/admin/docs/sidecars`'s "Form security" section for the existing
-input-cleaning/CSRF/spam-prevention layers a comment form should compose
-the same way the contact form does).
-
-### Ecommerce functionality
+### Ecommerce: Lib\Money

 - **Type:** Feature
 - **Status:** Backlog
 - **Priority:** Low
- **Depends on:** SQLite groundwork (Done), Session handling (with flash sessions) (Done), Admin login & user management
- **Added:** 2026-07-12
+- **Added:** 2026-07-15

-Product catalog, cart, checkout, and order storage — a `products` /
-`orders` table in SQLite, a session-based cart (rides on the flash-session
-work above), and a payment gateway integration for actually taking money.
-Given the project's no-Composer/no-vendored-SDK philosophy, prefer calling
-a payment provider's HTTP API directly (e.g. Stripe's REST API via cURL)
-over vendoring a full SDK, same reasoning as vendoring only Twig's `src/`
-rather than pulling in a package manager. Needs a decision on which
-provider(s) to support first. Order/product management rides on admin
-login above. Large feature — likely worth its own sub-breakdown (catalog,
-cart, checkout, order admin) once it's actually picked up rather than
-planning it all up front here.
+First and smallest piece of the former "Ecommerce functionality" entry —
+scoped down (2026-07-15) from a full catalog/cart/checkout/order-admin
+system to a handful of composable `Lib\` helpers, since a project's idea
+of a "product" is too site-specific to standardize; the project builds
+its own catalog and admin UI on `Lib\Db` the same way it would for any
+other feature, the same split `Lib\Comments` already makes for what a
+"page" is. `Lib\Money`: integer-cents arithmetic (add/subtract/multiply
+by a quantity) and formatting, avoiding the classic float-rounding bugs
+of storing prices as floats. No dependencies — the foundation `Lib\Cart`
+and the payment gateway helper below both need a non-lossy way to
+represent an amount before either can be built.
+
+### Ecommerce: Lib\Cart
+
+- **Type:** Feature
+- **Status:** Backlog
+- **Priority:** Low
+- **Depends on:** Ecommerce: Lib\Money, Session handling (with flash sessions) (Done)
+- **Added:** 2026-07-15
+
+Second piece of the former "Ecommerce functionality" entry (see Lib\Money
+above for the scoping note). A session-based cart primitive — add/remove/
+update line items, line and cart totals via `Lib\Money` — riding on
+`Lib\Session` the same way `Lib\Csrf`/`Lib\AdminAuth` lazily touch the
+native session. Generic on purpose: the cart holds id/qty/price entries a
+sidecar hands it, with no opinion on what a "product" is or where its
+catalog data comes from.
+
+### Ecommerce: payment gateway helper
+
+- **Type:** Feature
+- **Status:** Backlog
+- **Priority:** Low
+- **Depends on:** Ecommerce: Lib\Money
+- **Added:** 2026-07-15
+
+Third piece of the former "Ecommerce functionality" entry (see Lib\Money
+above for the scoping note). A driver-dispatched `Lib\` class for taking
+a payment, mirroring `Lib\Mailer`'s `mail_driver` config-key pattern —
+Stripe first (one `charge()`-shaped call plus webhook signature
+verification), calling the provider's REST API directly via cURL rather
+than vendoring an SDK, same reasoning as vendoring only Twig's `src/`
+rather than pulling in a package manager. Adding a second provider later
+means one more driver case, same as `Lib\Mailer::sendMail()`.

 ### Paywall functionality

 - **Type:** Feature
 - **Status:** Backlog
 - **Priority:** Low
- **Depends on:** Ecommerce functionality (recurring billing/payment plumbing), SQLite groundwork (Done), Session handling (with flash sessions) (Done), Admin login & user management
+- **Depends on:** Ecommerce: payment gateway helper, SQLite groundwork (Done), Session handling (with flash sessions) (Done), Admin login & user management (Done)
 - **Added:** 2026-07-12

 Subscription/membership content gating, similar to OnlyFans/Patreon:
 recurring billing tied to a user account, content (posts, pages, media)
 marked as gated behind an active subscription, and access checks in
-sidecars (`$_SESSION`'s logged-in user + subscription status, similar to
-how admin login gates `/admin/*`). Reuses Ecommerce's payment-gateway
+sidecars (`$_SESSION`'s logged-in user + subscription status) — the
+access-check half of this now has a shipped foundation to build on:
+`Lib\Access` (see User roles, groups & page access control in Done)
+already handles login-gated/group-gated sidecar content; a paywall
+mostly adds "does this account have an active subscription" as a rule
+source on top of it. Reuses Ecommerce's payment-gateway
 plumbing for the recurring-charge side rather than integrating a payment
 provider a second time — build after Ecommerce rather than in parallel.
 Also needs a decision on how gated content is authored (a `gated: true`
@@ -192,219 +163,105 @@ _Nothing yet._

 ## Done

-### Syntax highlighting on code blocks
-
- **Type:** Feature
- **Status:** Done
- **Priority:** Low
- **Added:** 2026-07-13
- **Shipped:** 2026-07-14
-
-Colors `<pre><code>` blocks site-wide via vendored highlight.js v11.11.1
-(pinned to that stable tag, not `main`, which tracks an in-progress
-`11.0.0-beta1`), auto-detected and restricted to `configure({ languages:
-['php', 'bash', 'xml', 'css', 'python', 'javascript', 'yaml', 'json',
-'ini'] })` — no per-block markup needed for the ~60 code blocks across the
-site. `css`/`python`/`javascript` ship in the core bundle alongside the
-original `php`/`bash`/`xml`; `yaml`/`json`/`ini` (the last covers
-`.env`-style files too) don't and are vendored as three separate
-per-language files under `public/vendor/highlightjs/languages/` — added
-after initial shipment, once `/blog/code-highlighting` (a new reference
-post, worked example of each of the nine) needed them. Themes swap with the
-existing dark/light toggle: **ir-black** (dark, as originally specified)
-+ **github** (light, new — resolving the open question this entry
-originally left for "decide whether code blocks stay ir-black regardless
-of site theme"), via the same `data-theme`-driven mechanism as the main
-palette (`novaconium/pages/_layout/syntax-highlight-init.twig`/
-`syntax-highlight.twig`, mirroring `theme-init.twig`/`nav.twig`'s split —
-a `MutationObserver` on `data-theme` swaps the theme `<link>` live,
-without touching the existing toggle button's own click handler at all).
-
-Twig-syntax code blocks (no highlight.js grammar exists for Twig) are
-marked `class="nohighlight"` by hand at the source — the entry's own
-suggested fallback — rather than force-matched into the restricted
-candidate set, which would color them *wrong* rather than leave them
-plain (auto-detection with a restricted language list always returns its
-best guess among the allowed set, never "gives up"). 15 blocks across 9
-files needed the marker; verified by finding every `<pre><code>`
-containing literal `{% %}`/`{{ }}` syntax rather than guessing, and
-confirmed two files matching that initial grep (`sidecars`, one block in
-`forms`) turned out to be `{% verbatim %}`-wrapped *PHP* snippets
-(verbatim just protecting a stray `{{ }}` mention), correctly left alone
-for auto-detection. Same class of gotcha hit again writing the bash
-example for `/blog/code-highlighting`: a command starting with the
-literal word `php` (`php -S 127.0.0.1:8000 ...`) auto-detects as PHP, not
-bash — not a bug, just a reminder that short/ambiguous snippets can
-mis-detect regardless of the restricted candidate set; the shipped bash
-example uses a `#!/bin/bash` shebang instead, a strong, reliable signal,
-verified against the real detector before committing to it.
-
-**One correction to this entry's own suggested approach, found while
-implementing it:** vendoring highlight.js under `novaconium/vendor/` next
-to Twig (as originally suggested) would have been wrong and silently
-broken — Twig is server-side PHP, never fetched by a browser, but
-highlight.js's `.js`/`.css` files are, and only `public/` is web
-reachable. Vendored to `public/vendor/highlightjs/` instead — see the
-standing rule added to `AGENTS.md` and `/admin/docs/upgrading-highlightjs`
-for the consequence: `public/` isn't touched by the usual
-`novaconium/`-swap framework-update workflow, so a future highlight.js
-version bump won't propagate to existing projects automatically the way
-everything else under `novaconium/` does.
-
-**A real bug caught by testing, not review:** `hljs.highlightAll()`
-doesn't defer itself if called while `document.readyState` is still
-`"loading"` — it silently no-ops permanently rather than waiting and
-retrying, confirmed with an actual DOM test (jsdom) before it was
-noticed, not assumed safe just because the script tag sits near the end
-of `<body>`. Fixed by wrapping the call in the same `DOMContentLoaded`
-pattern `code-copy.twig` already uses. Verified end-to-end with a real
-`highlight.js` execution against real rendered page HTML (not a hand
-rolled mock): correct language detection on real PHP/Bash blocks,
-`nohighlight` blocks left untouched, and `code.textContent` (what the
-copy-to-clipboard button reads) confirmed unchanged after `<span>`
-wrapping — the specific regression this entry flagged as a risk.
-
-### Blog RSS feed
+### User roles, groups & page access control

 - **Type:** Feature
 - **Status:** Done
 - **Priority:** Medium
+- **Depends on:** Admin login & user management (Done)
+- **Added:** 2026-07-14
+- **Shipped:** 2026-07-14 (b882c30)
+
+Follow-up to Admin login & user management (below), shipped the same day
+before any of it was committed — so the `users` schema change went into
+the existing `0002_create_users.sql` rather than a third migration. Two
+roles (`users.role`): the first user created is `'admin'`, everyone
+after is `'registered'` with an optional single group
+(`users.user_group`, a plain text label matched exactly — deliberately
+no groups table). `/admin/*` and draft preview are admin-only now — a
+logged-in registered user gets a plain 404 there (not a login redirect;
+they're authenticated, what they lack is the role) — and the
+last-active-user lockout guard became a last-active-*admin* guard,
+applied to both the disable and the new demote action (`/admin/users`
+also grew group-assignment and promote/demote).
+
+`Lib\Access` (`novaconium/lib/Access.php`) is the sidecar-level content
+gate, per the "assign a page/section to a user or group" spec:
+`Access::require('group:members', 'user:bob')` at the top of a sidecar
+returns `null` or a ready-made `Response` (anonymous → login redirect
+carrying a `?return=` path, validated against open redirects;
+wrong-account → 404, drafts' hide-don't-tease posture). No rules = any
+logged-in user; admins pass everything. Public is the default twice
+over: sidecars that never call it are untouched, and static
+(sidecar-less) pages *can't* call it — always public, which also means
+a gated page necessarily has a sidecar and is therefore never written
+to the static HTML cache: the caching/auth standing rule satisfied by
+construction, no bootstrap exclusion needed. Sections are gated by
+composition (a shared `_access.php` file `require`'d by each sidecar in
+the section), not per-directory config. `Access::require()` has no side
+effects on deny, so the content-index crawl (anonymous GET per sidecar)
+both drops gated pages from `/search`/`/sitemap.xml` automatically and
+can't touch the visiting user's session. Verified end-to-end with three
+real accounts (admin / registered-with-group / registered-without) and
+a cookie jar each: rule matrix, return-path round trip,
+`//evil.com`-style return rejection, registered-user 404s on `/admin/*`
+and drafts, promote/demote + guards, group reassignment taking effect
+immediately, crawl exclusion, and flag-off zero-footprint posture.
+Documented at `/admin/docs/access-control` (new topic, linked from the
+docs nav/index), with supporting updates to `admin-auth`, `drafts`,
+`sidecars`, `config`, and `libraries`.
+
+### Admin login & user management
+
+- **Type:** Feature
+- **Status:** Done
+- **Priority:** Medium
+- **Depends on:** SQLite groundwork (Done), Session handling (with flash sessions) (Done)
 - **Added:** 2026-07-12
- **Shipped:** 2026-07-14
+- **Shipped:** 2026-07-14 (b882c30)

-`App/pages/blog/feed/index.php`, sidecar-only, `Response::xml(...)` — as
-originally scoped, no new mechanism needed. Deliberately independent of
-the content index above: it reads the same hand-written `$posts` array
-`App/pages/blog/index.php` itself renders from (now with a `published`
-date field added per entry, illustrative — this repo's posts all arrived
-in one batch import, no authentic per-post history to derive real dates
-from), so it works with `content_index_enabled` left at its shipped
-default of `false`. Sorted newest-first for the feed only; the array's
-own order (and the `/blog` listing page) is untouched. `<link>`/`<guid>`
-are site-relative paths, consistent with how `canonical`/`og:url` already
-work in this framework (no site-wide base-URL config exists to build
-absolute URLs from — not adding one for this alone); `<guid
-isPermaLink="false">` is the spec-correct way to mark a non-absolute
-identifier.
+Shipped as specified: the single-user HTTP Basic Auth stopgap that gated
+`/admin/*` was **replaced, not layered on** — `AdminAuth` keeps its name
+and call sites (`bootstrap.php`'s admin gate and draft gate) but is now a
+session login (`Lib\Session`, with a new `Session::regenerate()` against
+session fixation) against a `users` table
+(`novaconium/migrations/0002_create_users.sql`, the second
+framework-shipped migration) with `password_hash()`/`password_verify()`
+and no external auth library. The `admin_username`/`admin_password_hash`
+config keys and the `/admin/password-hash` page are gone, superseded by a
+single `admin_auth_enabled` flag (default `false`) plus new
+`/admin/login`, `/admin/logout` (a real page now — the pre-router special
+case in `bootstrap.php` is gone too — and POST-only with a GET confirm
+form, because the content-index crawl runs every sidecar as a GET and a
+logout-on-GET would have ended the crawling admin's own session the first
+time a lazy reindex rendered it), and `/admin/users`
+(create/disable/enable/change-password) pages, and a
+`novaconium/bin/create-admin-user.php` CLI (password via stdin, for
+deploy scripts and lockout recovery). Documented at
+`/admin/docs/admin-auth`.

-Shipped a per-tag feed too (`App/pages/blog/tag/[tag]/feed/index.php`),
-gated on `content_index_enabled` the same way `blog/tag/[tag]/index.php`
-is, `<pubDate>` from each page's `source_mtime` (a stand-in for a real
-publish date, which the content index doesn't track). Both feeds share
-`Lib\Rss::render()` (`novaconium/lib/Rss.php`, new — a generic RSS 2.0
-envelope builder, framework-default since only its two call sites are
-blog-specific, not the class itself) rather than duplicating the same XML
-building logic twice.
-
-Feed auto-discovery needed a new `head_extra` block in the root layout
-(`novaconium/pages/_layout/layout.twig`, empty by default, rendered right
-before `</head>`) — the root layout had no open-ended "extra head
-content" extension point before this; `App/pages/blog/_layout/layout.twig`
-overrides it with the `<link rel="alternate">`, so it only appears on
-`/blog/*` pages, not site-wide.
-
-### Content index: keywords, tags/categories, search, XML sitemap
-
- **Type:** Feature
- **Status:** Done
- **Priority:** Medium
- **Depends on:** SQLite groundwork (Done)
- **Added:** 2026-07-12 (Blog tags/categories, Internal search, XML
-  sitemap entries) / 2026-07-14 (keywords, combined)
- **Shipped:** 2026-07-14
-
-Shipped Blog tags/categories, Internal search, and XML sitemap together,
-plus a new meta-keywords request, as one feature rather than three —
-exactly the "worth deciding together when either is picked up" call this
-file made when XML sitemap was first written. All three (plus a fourth,
-new: `<meta name="keywords">`) turned out to be one shared crawler with
-thin consumers, not separate mechanisms.
-
-Design: content stays in files (Twig pages, no CMS-style body-in-database
-— keeps the Hugo-style file-based-routing pitch intact). Per-page metadata
-is four Twig blocks in `novaconium/pages/_layout/layout.twig`, the same
-override mechanism already used for `title`/`description`/`og_*`:
-`keywords` (rendered, new `<meta>` tag), `tags` (comma-separated, not
-rendered), `changefreq`/`priority` (sitemap hints, not rendered). No
-front-matter, no separate metadata file convention. `App\ContentIndexer`
-(`novaconium/src/ContentIndexer.php`) crawls every routable page
-(`Overlay::listPageDirs()`, a new method — skips `_`/`404`/`[param]`
-directories, matching `Router::resolve()`'s reserved-segment rule and the
-original XML sitemap entry's stated V1 limitation that wildcard routes
-aren't crawled without a data source to resolve concrete values) and pulls
-each block's value via `Renderer::renderForIndex()` (new method) calling
-Twig's own `TemplateWrapper::renderBlock()` — not regex-parsing `.twig`
-source — so overrides and layout inheritance resolve exactly like a real
-render. Rendered HTML is `strip_tags()`-stripped into a SQLite FTS5 table
-for search. A page listed in `draft_routes` or whose `robots` block
-resolves to `noindex` is skipped entirely (never indexed), same convention
-`/admin/docs/seo` already documents for admin/internal pages.
-
-**Off by default** (`content_index_enabled`, default `false`) — all three
-consumers depend on SQLite, a real dependency plenty of sites built on
-this framework won't want, same reasoning that already keeps Matomo/admin
-auth off by default. Verified end-to-end that disabling it is a true
-zero-footprint no-op: no `data/novaconium.sqlite` gets created just
-because the feature exists in the codebase, and all three consumer routes
-404 exactly as if they didn't exist.
-
-Two trigger paths sharing one `reindex()`: lazy (`content_index_auto`,
-default `true` — a cheap mtime-staleness check on first touch of a
-consumer route, never on a normal page view) and explicit
-(`php novaconium/bin/index-content.php`, same shape as `bin/migrate.php`,
-ignores `content_index_auto`).
-
-**Two real bugs caught by testing, not review:**
-1. **Reentrancy** — the crawl renders every page, including `/search`
-   itself, whose own sidecar calls `ContentIndexer::ensureFresh()`;
-   without a guard this triggered a nested `reindex()` mid-transaction and
-   fataled on a second `PDO::beginTransaction()`. Fixed with a
-   `private static bool $indexing` guard checked at the top of both
-   `ensureFresh()` and `reindex()`.
-2. **Wrong PDO constant** (`PDO::KEY_PAIR` instead of
-   `PDO::FETCH_KEY_PAIR`) in the search sidecar, caught immediately by
-   actually hitting `/search` with a real query rather than trusting the
-   code read correctly.
-
-Also fixed two unrelated pre-existing bugs discovered while building this
-(both blocked/were adjacent to the crawler rendering every page for real):
-`novaconium/pages/admin/docs/sidecars/index.twig` had a literal
-un-escaped `{{ }}` in prose text that fataled Twig with a syntax error on
-any real render of that page (it had apparently never actually been
-visited before); and both that page and `Lib\Input`'s doc-comment still
-said "there's no database layer in this framework yet" despite `Lib\Db`
-having shipped weeks earlier.
-
-**`migrations_dir` (`Lib\Db`) now accepts an ordered list of roots, not
-just one path** — needed so the content index's schema
-(`novaconium/migrations/0001_create_content_index.sql`) could ship as a
-framework migration without colliding with project migrations in
-`App/migrations/`. This is the first framework-shipped migration, and the
-two-root extension point `AGENTS.md` flagged as a future need when SQLite
-groundwork shipped. Migrations are now tracked by path relative to the
-repo root (not bare filename) specifically to prevent two roots each
-containing a same-named file from shadowing one another —
-`realpath()`-normalized so a `migrations_dir` containing `..` (like the
-default connection's own `__DIR__ . '/../App/migrations'`) doesn't produce
-an ugly, unstable tracked name.
-
-New consumer routes: `novaconium/pages/sitemap.xml/index.php` (framework
-default — confirmed a directory literally named `sitemap.xml` resolves
-correctly, since `Router` only splits on `/`), `novaconium/pages/search/`
-(framework-default, FTS5-backed, the search term wrapped as an escaped
-quoted phrase before binding — parameter binding stops SQL injection but
-not FTS5's own query-language parsing of the bound value, verified against
-a literal `"` and several FTS operator characters, not just assumed safe),
-and `App/pages/blog/tag/[tag]/` (project-owned, since `blog/` is project
-content — `App/pages/blog/index.php`'s hand-written post array is
-untouched, `content_tags` is a derived index on top of it, not a
-replacement). Added `{% block tags %}` to the 4 existing blog posts so tag
-browsing has real content to demonstrate against — an exception to the
-"ship mechanism only, no demo content" pattern of prior sessions, since
-here the target content already existed and tag browsing is meaningless
-to verify without it. Documented at `/admin/docs/content-index`, with
-supporting updates to `/admin/docs/seo`, `/admin/docs/database`, and
-`novaconium/bin/create-static-page.php`'s scaffolded template.
+Decisions worth recording: same zero-footprint posture as the content
+index (flag off → the three auth routes 404 and `Lib\Db` is never
+touched, so no `data/novaconium.sqlite` appears — the route sidecars
+self-load config the same way `/search` does); first-user bootstrap keeps
+the gate open only while the `users` table is empty (creating the first
+user at `/admin/users` auto-logs you in as it and closes the gate —
+running the CLI *before* enabling the flag avoids the window entirely);
+`admin/login` is the one `/admin/*` route exempted from
+`requireLogin()`, or its redirect would loop; disabling a user kills any
+live session on its next request (`currentUser()` re-checks the row per
+request), and disabling the last active user is refused since the
+empty-table window never reopens — that would be a permanent lockout.
+Login/user passwords read `$_POST` directly, extending the documented
+`Lib\Input` exact-value exception (verified with a password containing
+`<>` end-to-end). Verified route-by-route with real HTTP requests and a
+cookie jar: flag off (404s, no DB file), setup window, first-user
+auto-login, fresh-client redirect, wrong/right password, logout,
+enable/disable/change-password, live-session lockout on disable,
+last-user guard, CSRF failure paths, CLI creation, and draft gating via
+the session cookie (including confirming a pre-existing static-cache copy
+of a page still serves after the page is marked a draft until the cache
+is cleared — the documented cache-clear step, not a new bug).

 ### Draft pages (admin-only preview)

@@ -477,44 +334,6 @@ admin login (next up) depends on it for logged-in state. Documented at
 `/admin/docs/session` and in `AGENTS.md` next to the `Lib\Csrf`/`Lib\Db`
 sections.

-### MySQL support
-
- **Type:** Feature
- **Status:** Done
- **Priority:** Medium
- **Depends on:** SQLite groundwork (Done)
- **Added:** 2026-07-12
- **Shipped:** 2026-07-14
-
-Let a project point `Lib\Db` at MySQL — but went further than the original
-spec ("point the `Db` wrapper at MySQL instead of SQLite"): a real
-requirement surfaced during implementation that a single request may need
-**both** at once (sidecars have full access to any `Lib\` class, so nothing
-stops one from querying this site's own SQLite data and a legacy MySQL
-database in the same request). So `Lib\Db` was redesigned around multiple,
-independently-configured, simultaneously-open named connections
-(`config['db_connections']`, keyed by name — `'default'` is the only
-required one) rather than one global connection switched by a single
-`db_driver` key. This superseded the flat `db_driver`/`db_path`/
-`db_migrations_dir` keys the SQLite groundwork entry above originally
-shipped with (which had no downstream consumers yet, so no migration path
-was needed). `Db::query(string $sql, array $params = [], string
-$connection = 'default')` and `Db::connection(string $name = 'default')`
-both default to `'default'` so the common single-database case reads the
-same as before; a third/first argument targets any other configured
-connection. Each connection has its own lazy PDO connect (`'sqlite'` and
-`'mysql'` drivers implemented), its own optional `migrations_dir`, and its
-own independent `schema_migrations` table — verified for real (not just by
-inspection) by running a local MariaDB instance alongside the existing
-SQLite connection and executing queries against both from the same script.
-`db_connections` needed one deliberate exception to the project's usual
-shallow config-merge rule — merged one level deeper, by connection name, so
-an `App/config.php` adding a `legacy` connection doesn't silently delete
-the framework's `default` one — documented in `AGENTS.md` and
-`/admin/docs/database`, including the exact "capture defaults before the
-top-level `array_merge()` overwrites them" ordering bug hit once while
-building this (caught by the end-to-end MySQL test, not by review).
-
 ### SQLite groundwork

 - **Type:** Feature
@@ -541,38 +360,6 @@ entry below (shipped 2026-07-14) for the connection/config/migration API,
 which superseded the single-connection shape (`db_driver`/`db_path`/
 `db_migrations_dir` config keys) this entry originally shipped with.

-### Copy-to-clipboard button on code blocks
-
- **Type:** Feature
- **Status:** Done
- **Priority:** Low
- **Added:** 2026-07-13
- **Shipped:** 2026-07-14
-
-Every `<pre><code>` block across `/admin/docs/*` and the blog's reference
-posts (Twig Syntax Guide, Style Guide) is meant to be copy-pasted — added a
-small button on hover that copies the block's text via the
-[Clipboard API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Clipboard/writeText)
-(`navigator.clipboard.writeText(...)`), consistent with this project's
-no-build-step philosophy: vanilla JS, no dependency, same event-delegation
-pattern as the dark/light theme toggle (`novaconium/pages/_layout/nav.twig`).
-Implemented as a single site-wide partial
-(`novaconium/pages/_layout/code-copy.twig`, included from
-`_layout/layout.twig`'s footer) that injects a button into every `<pre>`
-containing a `<code>` on `DOMContentLoaded`, rather than touching each doc
-page's markup individually. Added `copy`/`check` icons to
-`novaconium/pages/_layout/icons.twig` and matching styles in
-`novaconium/sass/main.sass` (hover/focus-revealed button, `.copied` state).
-Icon markup reaches JS via two `<template>` elements read through
-`.innerHTML`, not Twig's `|escape('js')` — that filter calls
-`Twig\Runtime\mb_ord()` and fatals without the `mbstring` extension, hit
-for real once on a bare-PHP install; see the standing rule added to
-`AGENTS.md` next to the existing `|slice`/`mb_substr` gotcha.
-Copies via `code.textContent`, not `innerHTML`, so HTML-entity-escaped
-samples (e.g. `&lt;h1&gt;` in the SEO starter template) come out as literal
-characters rather than escaped markup. Shows a "Copied!" label/checkmark
-for 1.5s after a successful copy.
-
 ## Won't Do

 ### 404 tracking
@@ -0,0 +1,80 @@
+<?php
+
+use Lib\Db;
+use Lib\Validate;
+
+require __DIR__ . '/../autoload.php';
+
+// Creates an admin user from the command line (e.g. from a deploy script,
+// or to fix a lockout) — the CLI counterpart to /admin/users, and the way
+// to create the first user *before* flipping admin_auth_enabled on, which
+// avoids the brief open-access setup window /admin/users otherwise relies
+// on (see /admin/docs/admin-auth).
+//
+//   php novaconium/bin/create-admin-user.php <username> <email>
+//
+// The password is read from stdin — typed at the prompt (echo suppressed
+// where the terminal supports it), or piped:
+//
+//   echo 'the-password' | php novaconium/bin/create-admin-user.php admin admin@example.com
+//
+// Deliberately not gated on admin_auth_enabled: creating the row is
+// harmless while the gate is off, and doing it first is the safer order.
+
+$username = trim((string) ($argv[1] ?? ''));
+$email = Validate::isEmail((string) ($argv[2] ?? ''));
+if ($username === '' || strlen($username) > 64 || $email === false) {
+    fwrite(STDERR, "Usage: php novaconium/bin/create-admin-user.php <username> <email>\n");
+    exit(1);
+}
+
+// Db::connection() runs pending migrations on first touch, so the users
+// table exists after this even on a fresh clone.
+$exists = (bool) Db::query('SELECT EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM users WHERE username = ?)', [$username])->fetchColumn();
+if ($exists) {
+    fwrite(STDERR, "A user named '{$username}' already exists.\n");
+    exit(1);
+}
+
+$emailExists = (bool) Db::query('SELECT EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM users WHERE email = ?)', [$email])->fetchColumn();
+if ($emailExists) {
+    fwrite(STDERR, "A user with the email '{$email}' already exists.\n");
+    exit(1);
+}
+
+$interactive = stream_isatty(STDIN);
+if ($interactive) {
+    fwrite(STDOUT, "Password for '{$username}': ");
+    // Suppress echo while the password is typed; restore afterwards.
+    // shell_exec() may be unavailable/no-op on some setups — then the
+    // password just echoes, same as any basic CLI prompt.
+    shell_exec('stty -echo 2> /dev/null');
+}
+
+$password = rtrim((string) fgets(STDIN), "\r\n");
+
+if ($interactive) {
+    shell_exec('stty echo 2> /dev/null');
+    fwrite(STDOUT, "\n");
+}
+
+if (strlen($password) < 8) {
+    fwrite(STDERR, "Use a password of at least 8 characters.\n");
+    exit(1);
+}
+
+// Always role 'admin', as the script name says — /admin/users is the
+// place to create registered users; this exists for first-user setup and
+// lockout recovery, both of which need an admin. Auto-verified for the
+// same reason /admin/users auto-verifies the very first user: an admin
+// created this way has nobody else to have vouched for them, and lockout
+// recovery in particular can't depend on a mail transport being
+// configured (see /admin/docs/admin-auth's email verification section).
+$now = gmdate('Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z');
+Db::query(
+    "INSERT INTO users (username, email, password_hash, role, user_group, is_disabled, created_at, verified_at) VALUES (?, ?, ?, 'admin', '', 0, ?, ?)",
+    [$username, $email, password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT), $now, $now]
+);
+
+echo "User '{$username}' created.\n";
+echo "If admin auth isn't enabled yet, set 'admin_auth_enabled' => true in App/config.php.\n";
@@ -4,11 +4,9 @@
 * Front-controller wiring. Every request — via public/index.php (Apache) or
 * public/router.php (php -S) — ends up require'ing this one file, which:
 *   1. loads config (framework defaults + optional App/ override)
- *   2. handles the one hardcoded route (/admin/logout) that exists outside
- *      the normal page tree
- *   3. resolves the URL to a page directory (Router)
- *   4. gates /admin/* behind Basic Auth, if configured (AdminAuth)
- *   5. renders the matched page, or a 404 (Renderer)
+ *   2. resolves the URL to a page directory (Router)
+ *   3. gates /admin/* behind session login, if enabled (AdminAuth)
+ *   4. renders the matched page, or a 404 (Renderer)
 * There's no framework "kernel" class doing this — it's just a plain
 * top-to-bottom script, deliberately, so a dev can read the whole
 * request lifecycle in one file without chasing an abstraction.
@@ -37,20 +35,7 @@ if ($config['debug']) {
    ini_set('display_errors', '1');
 }

-// Trim the query string and any trailing slash so /admin/logout/ and
-// /admin/logout?x=1 both match the check below the same way $router does
-// internally for real page routes.
 $requestUri = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ?? '/';
-$requestPath = rtrim(parse_url($requestUri, PHP_URL_PATH) ?: '/', '/');
-
-// /admin/logout isn't a real page under App/pages/ or novaconium/pages/ —
-// there's nothing to route to, so it's special-cased here before the
-// router even runs. AdminAuth::logout() always sends a fresh 401 challenge
-// (the standard trick for "logging out" of HTTP Basic Auth, which has no
-// real server-side session to invalidate) and exits immediately.
-if ($requestPath === '/admin/logout') {
-    AdminAuth::logout();
-}

 // Router::resolve() only answers "does a page exist at this URL, and if
 // so which directory / what params?" — it never touches Twig, sidecars, or
@@ -58,36 +43,49 @@ if ($requestPath === '/admin/logout') {
 $router = new Router($config['pages_dirs']);
 $route = $router->resolve($requestUri);

-// Every route under /admin/* — clear-cache, docs, password-hash, and any
-// admin page a project adds later — is gated here, once, rather than in
-// each page individually. A new admin page is automatically protected the
-// moment it exists; nothing to remember to wire up. No-op (open access)
-// when admin_password_hash is empty, which is the default. See
-// novaconium/src/AdminAuth.php and /admin/docs/admin-auth.
-$isAdminRoute = $route->found && ($route->dir === 'admin' || str_starts_with((string) $route->dir, 'admin/'));
-if ($isAdminRoute) {
-    AdminAuth::requireLogin($config['admin_username'], $config['admin_password_hash']);
-}
-
 // Both of these are derived, request-independent config values that get
 // handed to the Renderer so it can expose them to every Twig template as
 // globals (matomo_url/matomo_site_id/admin_auth_enabled) — see
 // Renderer::__construct(). Normalizing the trailing slash here means every
 // template can safely do `matomo_url + 'matomo.php'` without checking.
 $matomoUrl = $config['matomo_url'] !== '' ? rtrim($config['matomo_url'], '/') . '/' : '';
-$adminAuthEnabled = $config['admin_password_hash'] !== '';
+$adminAuthEnabled = (bool) $config['admin_auth_enabled'];

 $cache = new Cache($config['cache_dir']);
 $renderer = new Renderer($config['pages_dirs'], $cache, $adminAuthEnabled, $matomoUrl, $config['matomo_site_id'], $config['site_name'], $config['content_index_enabled']);

-// A route listed in draft_routes is only visible to an authenticated admin
-// — anyone else gets treated exactly like a route that doesn't exist at
-// all (a plain 404, not a login prompt), so a draft's existence isn't
-// revealed to anyone poking at the URL. See /admin/docs/drafts. Reuses the
-// same credential check /admin/* uses (AdminAuth::isAuthenticated()) —
-// in practice an admin authenticates by visiting /admin once first; the
-// browser then resends those same Basic Auth credentials to draft URLs
-// too, since they share the same origin/realm.
+// Every route under /admin/* — clear-cache, docs, users, and any admin
+// page a project adds later — is gated here, once, rather than in each
+// page individually. A new admin page is automatically protected the
+// moment it exists; nothing to remember to wire up. Two steps: nobody
+// logged in → redirect to the login form (requireLogin() exits); logged
+// in but not an admin (a 'registered' user — see /admin/docs/admin-auth)
+// → the same plain 404 an unmatched route gets, since bouncing an
+// already-authenticated user back to the login form would be a lie (what
+// they lack is the admin role, not a session). The one exemption is the
+// login form itself, which has to stay reachable logged-out or
+// requireLogin()'s redirect to it would loop forever. No-op (open access)
+// when admin_auth_enabled is false (the default), or while no users exist
+// yet (so the first user can be created at /admin/users). See
+// novaconium/src/AdminAuth.php and /admin/docs/admin-auth.
+$isAdminRoute = $route->found && ($route->dir === 'admin' || str_starts_with((string) $route->dir, 'admin/'));
+if ($isAdminRoute && $route->dir !== 'admin/login') {
+    AdminAuth::requireLogin($config['admin_auth_enabled']);
+
+    if (!AdminAuth::isAdmin($config['admin_auth_enabled'])) {
+        $renderer->renderNotFound($requestUri);
+        return;
+    }
+}
+
+// A route listed in draft_routes is only visible to a logged-in admin —
+// anyone else (including logged-in registered users) gets treated exactly
+// like a route that doesn't exist at all (a plain 404, not a login
+// prompt), so a draft's existence isn't revealed to anyone poking at the
+// URL. See /admin/docs/drafts. Reuses the same access check /admin/* uses
+// (AdminAuth::isAdmin()) — an admin logs in once at /admin/login, and the
+// session cookie covers draft URLs too, since it's scoped to the whole
+// origin.
 $isDraftRoute = $route->found && in_array($route->dir, $config['draft_routes'], true);

 // $route->found is false for anything Router couldn't match to a real page
@@ -103,7 +101,7 @@ $isDraftRoute = $route->found && in_array($route->dir, $config['draft_routes'],
 // therefore AdminAuth::requireLogin()) ever runs again — permanently
 // serving the admin panel to anyone, unauthenticated, straight from the
 // static cache. See novaconium/src/Renderer.php.
-if (!$route->found || ($isDraftRoute && !AdminAuth::isAuthenticated($config['admin_username'], $config['admin_password_hash']))) {
+if (!$route->found || ($isDraftRoute && !AdminAuth::isAdmin($config['admin_auth_enabled']))) {
    $renderer->renderNotFound($requestUri);
    return;
 }
@@ -28,16 +28,21 @@ return [
    'matomo_url'     => '',
    'matomo_site_id' => '',

-    // Gates every /admin/* route (clear-cache, docs, and any future admin
-    // page) behind HTTP Basic Auth. Leave admin_password_hash empty (the
-    // default) to disable the gate entirely — matches this project's
-    // existing wide-open behavior until a project opts in. Generate a hash
-    // with: php -r "echo password_hash('yourpassword', PASSWORD_DEFAULT), PHP_EOL;"
-    // and set both via App/config.php, e.g.:
-    //   'admin_username'      => 'admin',
-    //   'admin_password_hash' => '$2y$10$...',
-    'admin_username'      => 'admin',
-    'admin_password_hash' => '',
+    // Gates every /admin/* route (clear-cache, docs, users, and any future
+    // admin page) behind a session login against the `users` table on
+    // Lib\Db's default connection — see /admin/docs/admin-auth. The first
+    // user created is the admin; users after that are 'registered', each
+    // with an optional group, and see whatever content sidecars grant via
+    // Lib\Access (see /admin/docs/access-control) — /admin/* itself 404s
+    // for them. Off by default because it depends on SQLite (same
+    // reasoning as content_index_enabled below): when false, /admin/* is
+    // wide open, /admin/login, /admin/logout, and /admin/users 404,
+    // Access::require() allows everything, and nothing ever touches
+    // Lib\Db because of this feature. After enabling it via
+    // App/config.php, create the first user at /admin/users (open access
+    // until at least one user exists) or with:
+    //   php novaconium/bin/create-admin-user.php <username>
+    'admin_auth_enabled' => false,

    // Lib\Db (see /admin/docs/database) — named, simultaneously-usable
    // connections, keyed by name; 'default' is the only one required. A
@@ -96,4 +101,42 @@ return [
    // deploy step.
    'content_index_enabled' => false,
    'content_index_auto'    => true,
+
+    // Media manager (/admin/media — see /admin/docs/media-manager): an
+    // upload/browse/delete UI for files under public/uploads/, covered by
+    // the existing /admin/* auth gate the moment the page exists, so
+    // there's no separate *_enabled flag here (unlike admin_auth_enabled/
+    // content_index_enabled above, it has no SQLite dependency to gate).
+    // media_upload_extensions is an allowlist, matched case-insensitively
+    // against the uploaded filename's extension; media_upload_max_bytes
+    // caps a single file's size (checked against both $_FILES' reported
+    // size and PHP's own upload_max_filesize/post_max_size ini limits,
+    // see /admin/docs/media-manager). 'svg' is deliberately NOT in this
+    // default list: files under public/uploads/ are served directly from
+    // this origin, and an SVG can carry inline <script>, making it a
+    // stored-XSS vector. Add 'svg' back via App/config.php only if you
+    // serve uploads with a restrictive CSP or Content-Disposition:
+    // attachment.
+    'media_upload_extensions' => ['jpg', 'jpeg', 'png', 'gif', 'webp', 'pdf', 'txt', 'zip'],
+    'media_upload_max_bytes'  => 10 * 1024 * 1024,
+
+    // Lib\Mailer's transactional-mail driver (see /admin/docs/admin-auth's
+    // email verification section) — separate from Mailer::send(), the
+    // contact form's own log-to-file stand-in, which this doesn't touch.
+    // 'log' (default) writes to the same novaconium/contact-log.txt with no
+    // external dependency, so a fresh checkout with admin_auth_enabled on
+    // can still create/verify accounts (via the logged link) with zero
+    // setup. 'mailjet' sends through MailJet's Send API v3.1
+    // (https://api.mailjet.com/v3.1/send) using the four keys below — set
+    // all four via App/config.php, e.g.:
+    //   'mail_driver'        => 'mailjet',
+    //   'mail_from_email'    => 'noreply@example.com',
+    //   'mail_from_name'     => 'Example Site',
+    //   'mailjet_api_key'    => '...',
+    //   'mailjet_api_secret' => '...',
+    'mail_driver'        => 'log',
+    'mail_from_email'    => '',
+    'mail_from_name'     => '',
+    'mailjet_api_key'    => '',
+    'mailjet_api_secret' => '',
 ];
@@ -0,0 +1,105 @@
+<?php
+
+namespace Lib;
+
+use App\AdminAuth;
+use App\Response;
+
+/**
+ * Sidecar-level access control for page content — the way a page (or a
+ * whole section, one line per page) is assigned to a user, a group, or
+ * just "anyone logged in". See /admin/docs/access-control. Usage, at the
+ * top of a sidecar:
+ *
+ *   if ($denied = Access::require('group:members')) {
+ *       return $denied;
+ *   }
+ *
+ * Rules: 'group:<name>' (the user's users.user_group matches), or
+ * 'user:<username>' (that exact account); several rules mean "any of
+ * these". No rules at all means any logged-in user. Admins always pass
+ * every rule. Returns null when the request may proceed, or a Response
+ * for the sidecar to return: a 303 to /admin/login (with a ?return= path
+ * back here) when nobody is logged in, or a plain 404 when someone *is*
+ * logged in but isn't allowed — same hide-don't-tease posture as draft
+ * pages, and the same plain-text 404 /search returns when disabled.
+ *
+ * Public is the default, twice over: a sidecar that never calls this is
+ * untouched, and a page with no sidecar at all *can't* call it — static
+ * (cached) pages are always public. That's load-bearing, not incidental:
+ * only sidecar-less pages are ever written to the static HTML cache
+ * (which .htaccess serves before PHP runs — see /admin/docs/caching), so
+ * a gated page, necessarily having a sidecar, is never cached. This
+ * satisfies the caching/auth standing rule in AGENTS.md by construction
+ * rather than by a bootstrap.php exclusion like drafts/admin need.
+ *
+ * Same open-until-configured posture as the rest of admin auth: with
+ * admin_auth_enabled off, or while no users exist yet, require() allows
+ * everything (there'd be nothing to log in as) — and never touches
+ * Lib\Db, so a site that never opted in never gets a database file.
+ *
+ * The content-index crawl runs every sidecar as an anonymous GET, so a
+ * gated page's sidecar short-circuits to the login redirect during a
+ * crawl — Renderer::renderForIndex() discards Responses, meaning gated
+ * pages are automatically absent from /search and /sitemap.xml, with no
+ * extra wiring. require() has no side effects on deny (the return path
+ * travels in the redirect URL, not the session) for the same reason: a
+ * crawl must not scribble on the visitor's session.
+ */
+final class Access
+{
+    private static ?bool $enabled = null;
+
+    public static function require(string ...$rules): ?Response
+    {
+        if (!self::enabled() || !AdminAuth::hasUsers()) {
+            return null;
+        }
+
+        $user = AdminAuth::currentUser();
+
+        if ($user === null) {
+            $path = (string) (parse_url($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ?? '/', PHP_URL_PATH) ?: '/');
+
+            return Response::redirect('/admin/login?return=' . rawurlencode($path), 303);
+        }
+
+        if ($user['role'] === 'admin' || $rules === []) {
+            return null;
+        }
+
+        foreach ($rules as $rule) {
+            if (str_starts_with($rule, 'user:') && substr($rule, 5) === $user['username']) {
+                return null;
+            }
+
+            if (str_starts_with($rule, 'group:') && $user['user_group'] !== '' && substr($rule, 6) === $user['user_group']) {
+                return null;
+            }
+        }
+
+        return Response::html('404 Not Found', 404);
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Same two-step config load bootstrap.php/bin scripts and the
+     * /search sidecar use — Lib\ classes aren't handed $config, so this
+     * loads its own copy to read admin_auth_enabled (memoized per
+     * request; static state never survives across requests).
+     */
+    private static function enabled(): bool
+    {
+        if (self::$enabled === null) {
+            $config = require __DIR__ . '/../config.php';
+
+            $appConfigFile = __DIR__ . '/../../App/config.php';
+            if (is_file($appConfigFile)) {
+                $config = array_merge($config, require $appConfigFile);
+            }
+
+            self::$enabled = (bool) $config['admin_auth_enabled'];
+        }
+
+        return self::$enabled;
+    }
+}
@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+<?php
+
+namespace Lib;
+
+/**
+ * A reusable comment thread any sidecar can attach to any page (not just
+ * blog posts), the same way Lib\SpamGuard/Lib\FormValidator are reusable
+ * across any form rather than hardcoded to the contact page. See
+ * /admin/docs/comments and novaconium/pages/_partials/comments/thread.twig
+ * for the paired Twig partial.
+ *
+ * Comments are tied to a real logged-in account (App\AdminAuth::currentUser()),
+ * never anonymous name/email fields — and since currentUser() already
+ * excludes disabled and unverified accounts, any user id passed to
+ * create() is already a real, verified account with nothing further to
+ * check here. Auto-approved on submission (no pending/approved state) —
+ * only a verified account can post one in the first place, so there's no
+ * anonymous-spam vector to pre-vet against — with a single is_hidden flag
+ * an admin can flip after the fact at /admin/comments, mirroring how
+ * /admin/users disables rather than pre-vets accounts.
+ */
+final class Comments
+{
+    /**
+     * The current route's path, e.g. "/blog/hello-world" — the natural
+     * page_path key for forPage()/create(), derived from the request
+     * itself so callers never hand-write a path that could drift from the
+     * actual route.
+     */
+    public static function currentPagePath(): string
+    {
+        return (string) parse_url($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ?? '/', PHP_URL_PATH);
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Visible (non-hidden) comments for a page, oldest first, joined to
+     * the posting user's username.
+     *
+     * @return array<int, array<string, mixed>>
+     */
+    public static function forPage(string $pagePath): array
+    {
+        return Db::query(
+            'SELECT comments.id, comments.body, comments.created_at, users.username ' .
+            'FROM comments JOIN users ON users.id = comments.user_id ' .
+            'WHERE comments.page_path = ? AND comments.is_hidden = 0 ' .
+            'ORDER BY comments.created_at ASC',
+            [$pagePath]
+        )->fetchAll(\PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
+    }
+
+    public static function create(string $pagePath, int $userId, string $body): void
+    {
+        Db::query(
+            'INSERT INTO comments (page_path, user_id, body, is_hidden, created_at) VALUES (?, ?, ?, 0, ?)',
+            [$pagePath, $userId, $body, gmdate('Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z')]
+        );
+    }
+
+    public static function setHidden(int $id, bool $hidden): void
+    {
+        Db::query('UPDATE comments SET is_hidden = ? WHERE id = ?', [$hidden ? 1 : 0, $id]);
+    }
+
+    public static function delete(int $id): void
+    {
+        Db::query('DELETE FROM comments WHERE id = ?', [$id]);
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Every comment, hidden or not, newest first — for the /admin/comments
+     * moderation list.
+     *
+     * @return array<int, array<string, mixed>>
+     */
+    public static function all(): array
+    {
+        return Db::query(
+            'SELECT comments.id, comments.page_path, comments.body, comments.created_at, comments.is_hidden, users.username ' .
+            'FROM comments JOIN users ON users.id = comments.user_id ' .
+            'ORDER BY comments.created_at DESC'
+        )->fetchAll(\PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
+    }
+}
@@ -15,11 +15,12 @@ namespace Lib;
 *
 *   <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
 *
- * This is the first thing in the framework that starts a native PHP session
+ * This was the first thing in the framework to start a native PHP session
 * — but only lazily, the moment token()/verify() is actually called. A page
- * that never touches Csrf never gets a session cookie. This is unrelated to
- * Lib\AdminAuth, which stays fully stateless (HTTP Basic Auth, no sessions
- * for login state) — see novaconium/src/AdminAuth.php.
+ * that never touches Csrf never gets a session cookie. Lib\Session and
+ * App\AdminAuth (session-based admin login) now touch the same native
+ * session the same lazy way — safe in any order, since ensureSession()
+ * no-ops when a session is already active.
 */
 final class Csrf
 {
@@ -89,6 +89,9 @@ final class Db
     */
    private static function connectSqlite(array $config): PDO
    {
+        self::requireDriver('sqlite', 'pdo_sqlite',
+            'bundled with PHP but sometimes not enabled — Debian/Ubuntu: `apt install php-sqlite3`; Arch: uncomment `extension=pdo_sqlite` in php.ini');
+
        $path = $config['path'];
        $dir = dirname($path);
        if (!is_dir($dir)) {
@@ -109,6 +112,9 @@ final class Db
     */
    private static function connectMysql(array $config): PDO
    {
+        self::requireDriver('mysql', 'pdo_mysql',
+            'Debian/Ubuntu: `apt install php-mysql`; Arch: uncomment `extension=pdo_mysql` in php.ini');
+
        $charset = $config['charset'] ?? 'utf8mb4';
        $dsn = "mysql:host={$config['host']};port={$config['port']};dbname={$config['database']};charset={$charset}";

@@ -118,6 +124,23 @@ final class Db
        ]);
    }

+    /**
+     * A missing PDO driver otherwise surfaces as a bare PDOException
+     * ("could not find driver") from deep inside a connect call — hit for
+     * real the first time this ran on a PHP install without pdo_sqlite
+     * enabled. Checking PDO::getAvailableDrivers() up front turns that
+     * into an error that names the extension and how to install it.
+     */
+    private static function requireDriver(string $driver, string $extension, string $installHint): void
+    {
+        if (!in_array($driver, PDO::getAvailableDrivers(), true)) {
+            throw new RuntimeException(
+                "PHP is missing the {$extension} extension, which this connection's '{$driver}' driver needs ({$installHint}). " .
+                'Verify with `php -m`, and restart PHP after enabling it. See /admin/docs/database.'
+            );
+        }
+    }
+
    /**
     * Applies any *.sql file under $migrationsDirs not yet recorded in this
     * connection's own schema_migrations table. $migrationsDirs is an
@@ -22,11 +22,13 @@ namespace Lib;
 * dangerous.
 *
 * One documented exception: a field that needs an exact, unmodified value
- * (e.g. a password about to be hashed) should read $_POST directly instead —
- * cleaning would silently strip characters like < and > before hashing,
- * producing a hash that doesn't match what the user actually typed. See
- * novaconium/pages/admin/password-hash/index.php for the one place this
- * framework does that on purpose.
+ * (e.g. a password about to be hashed or verified) should read $_POST
+ * directly instead — cleaning would silently strip characters like < and >
+ * before hashing, producing a hash that doesn't match what the user
+ * actually typed (or failing a login whose password actually matches). See
+ * the password fields in novaconium/pages/admin/users/index.php and
+ * novaconium/pages/admin/login/index.php for the places this framework
+ * does that on purpose.
 */
 final class Input
 {
@@ -20,4 +20,93 @@ final class Mailer

        return true;
    }
+
+    /**
+     * Transactional mail (verification links, and later password reset) —
+     * separate from send() above, which is specifically the contact form's
+     * "notify the site owner of a submission" shape and stays untouched.
+     * Driver-dispatched via config['mail_driver'] (see /admin/docs/admin-auth
+     * and novaconium/config.php): 'log' (default, zero external dependency,
+     * same novaconium/contact-log.txt as send() above but a distinguishable
+     * line prefix) or 'mailjet' (Send API v3.1, https://api.mailjet.com/v3.1/send,
+     * Basic auth mailjet_api_key:mailjet_api_secret). Adding a future
+     * provider means adding a case here and a private sendVia*() method —
+     * callers never change.
+     */
+    public function sendMail(string $toEmail, string $subject, string $textBody): bool
+    {
+        $config = self::config();
+
+        return match ($config['mail_driver']) {
+            'mailjet' => $this->sendViaMailjet($config, $toEmail, $subject, $textBody),
+            default   => $this->sendViaLog($toEmail, $subject, $textBody),
+        };
+    }
+
+    private function sendViaLog(string $toEmail, string $subject, string $textBody): bool
+    {
+        $line = sprintf(
+            "[%s] MAIL <%s> %s: %s\n",
+            date('c'),
+            $toEmail,
+            $subject,
+            str_replace("\n", ' ', $textBody)
+        );
+
+        file_put_contents(__DIR__ . '/../contact-log.txt', $line, FILE_APPEND);
+
+        return true;
+    }
+
+    private function sendViaMailjet(array $config, string $toEmail, string $subject, string $textBody): bool
+    {
+        $payload = [
+            'Messages' => [
+                [
+                    'From' => [
+                        'Email' => $config['mail_from_email'],
+                        'Name'  => $config['mail_from_name'],
+                    ],
+                    'To' => [
+                        ['Email' => $toEmail],
+                    ],
+                    'Subject'  => $subject,
+                    'TextPart' => $textBody,
+                ],
+            ],
+        ];
+
+        $ch = curl_init('https://api.mailjet.com/v3.1/send');
+        curl_setopt_array($ch, [
+            CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
+            CURLOPT_POST           => true,
+            CURLOPT_USERPWD        => $config['mailjet_api_key'] . ':' . $config['mailjet_api_secret'],
+            CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER     => ['Content-Type: application/json'],
+            CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS     => json_encode($payload),
+            CURLOPT_TIMEOUT        => 10,
+        ]);
+
+        curl_exec($ch);
+        $status = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
+        curl_close($ch);
+
+        return $status >= 200 && $status < 300;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Same two-step App-over-novaconium shallow merge every entry point
+     * duplicates (see novaconium/bootstrap.php, Lib\Db::config()) rather
+     * than a shared Config class — no such class exists in this codebase.
+     */
+    private static function config(): array
+    {
+        $config = require __DIR__ . '/../config.php';
+
+        $appConfigFile = __DIR__ . '/../../App/config.php';
+        if (is_file($appConfigFile)) {
+            $config = array_merge($config, require $appConfigFile);
+        }
+
+        return $config;
+    }
 }
@@ -61,6 +61,20 @@ final class Session
        unset($_SESSION[$key]);
    }

+    /**
+     * Swaps the session id for a fresh one, keeping the session's data.
+     * Call on any privilege change — after a successful login, and on
+     * logout — so a session id an attacker planted or observed before the
+     * change is worthless after it (session fixation). App\AdminAuth does
+     * exactly this.
+     */
+    public static function regenerate(): void
+    {
+        self::ensureSession();
+
+        session_regenerate_id(true);
+    }
+
    /**
     * Stores $value so it's readable via getFlash($key) on the next
     * request only, then gone — regardless of whether getFlash() was
@@ -21,5 +21,6 @@ CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE IF NOT EXISTS content_search USING fts5(route UNINDEXED, ti
 CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS content_index_meta (
    id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY CHECK (id = 1),
    newest_source_mtime INTEGER NOT NULL,
+    source_count INTEGER NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
    indexed_at TEXT NOT NULL
 );
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS users (
+    id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
+    username TEXT NOT NULL UNIQUE,
+    email TEXT NOT NULL UNIQUE,
+    password_hash TEXT NOT NULL,
+    role TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT 'registered',
+    user_group TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
+    is_disabled INTEGER NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
+    created_at TEXT NOT NULL,
+    verified_at TEXT,
+    verification_token TEXT,
+    verification_token_expires_at TEXT
+);
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+CREATE TABLE comments (
+    id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
+    page_path TEXT NOT NULL,
+    user_id INTEGER NOT NULL REFERENCES users(id) ON DELETE CASCADE,
+    body TEXT NOT NULL,
+    is_hidden INTEGER NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
+    created_at TEXT NOT NULL
+);
+CREATE INDEX idx_comments_page_path ON comments(page_path);
@@ -92,6 +92,15 @@
 </svg>
 {% endmacro %}

+{% macro users(class) %}
+<svg class="icon icon-users {{ class }}" viewBox="0 0 24 24" width="16" height="16" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" aria-hidden="true" focusable="false">
+    <path d="M16 21v-2a4 4 0 0 0-4-4H6a4 4 0 0 0-4 4v2" />
+    <circle cx="9" cy="7" r="4" />
+    <path d="M22 21v-2a4 4 0 0 0-3-3.87" />
+    <path d="M16 3.13a4 4 0 0 1 0 7.75" />
+</svg>
+{% endmacro %}
+
 {% macro trash(class) %}
 <svg class="icon icon-trash {{ class }}" viewBox="0 0 24 24" width="16" height="16" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" aria-hidden="true" focusable="false">
    <path d="M4 7h16" />
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@
    <meta name="keywords" content="{% block keywords %}{% endblock %}">
    <link rel="canonical" href="{% block canonical %}{{ request_path|default('/') }}{% endblock %}">
    <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico">
+    <meta name="generator" content="novaconium">

    {# tags/changefreq/priority (below) are metadata-only, not meant to be
       visible on the page. A block tag always emits its content wherever
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+{#
+    Reusable comment thread — included from any page whose sidecar
+    returns 'comments' (Lib\Comments::forPage()), 'currentUser'
+    (App\AdminAuth::currentUser()), 'csrfField'/'csrfToken', and
+    'renderedAt' (Lib\SpamGuard::renderedAt()) in its context. See
+    /admin/docs/comments for the full sidecar contract this expects, and
+    App/pages/blog/comments-demo/index.php for a worked example. A page
+    with no 'comments' key never includes this at all — see the
+    surrounding {% if comments is defined %} in blog/_layout/layout.twig.
+#}
+{% import '_layout/icons.twig' as icons %}
+
+<section class="comments">
+    <h2 class="icon-heading">{{ icons.users() }}Comments</h2>
+
+    {% if comments is empty %}
+        <p>No comments yet.</p>
+    {% else %}
+        {% for comment in comments %}
+            <article class="comment">
+                <p><strong>{{ comment.username }}</strong> — <small>{{ comment.created_at }}</small></p>
+                <p>{{ comment.body }}</p>
+            </article>
+        {% endfor %}
+    {% endif %}
+
+    {% if currentUser %}
+        <form method="post" action="{{ request_path|default('/') }}">
+            <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+            <div class="hp-field" aria-hidden="true">
+                <label for="comment-website">Leave this field blank</label>
+                <input type="text" id="comment-website" name="website" tabindex="-1" autocomplete="off">
+            </div>
+            <input type="hidden" name="rendered_at" value="{{ renderedAt }}">
+            <p>
+                <label for="comment-body">Add a comment</label><br>
+                <textarea id="comment-body" name="body" rows="4"></textarea>
+                {% if commentError %}<br><small>{{ commentError }}</small>{% endif %}
+            </p>
+            <button type="submit">Post comment</button>
+        </form>
+    {% else %}
+        <p><a href="/admin/login">Log in</a> to leave a comment.</p>
+    {% endif %}
+</section>
@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+<?php
+
+use App\Response;
+use Lib\Comments;
+use Lib\Csrf;
+use Lib\Db;
+use Lib\Input;
+use Lib\Session;
+
+// No auth check here — bootstrap.php's admin gate already covers this
+// route like every other /admin/* page.
+
+if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
+    if (!Csrf::verify(Input::post('csrf_token'))) {
+        Session::flash('comments_error', 'Your session expired before submitting — please try again.');
+
+        return Response::redirect('/admin/comments', 303);
+    }
+
+    $action = Input::post('action', '');
+    $id = (int) Input::post('id', '0');
+    $target = Db::query('SELECT id FROM comments WHERE id = ?', [$id])->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
+
+    if ($target === false) {
+        Session::flash('comments_error', 'No such comment.');
+    } elseif ($action === 'hide') {
+        Comments::setHidden($id, true);
+        Session::flash('comments_notice', 'Comment hidden.');
+    } elseif ($action === 'show') {
+        Comments::setHidden($id, false);
+        Session::flash('comments_notice', 'Comment shown.');
+    } elseif ($action === 'delete') {
+        Comments::delete($id);
+        Session::flash('comments_notice', 'Comment deleted.');
+    }
+
+    return Response::redirect('/admin/comments', 303);
+}
+
+// Truncated in PHP, not with Twig's |slice — that filter calls
+// mb_substr() unconditionally, a hard mbstring dependency this project
+// deliberately avoids (see AGENTS.md).
+$truncate = static function (string $body): string {
+    $limit = 140;
+    $length = function_exists('mb_strlen') ? mb_strlen($body) : strlen($body);
+    if ($length <= $limit) {
+        return $body;
+    }
+
+    return (function_exists('mb_substr') ? mb_substr($body, 0, $limit) : substr($body, 0, $limit)) . '…';
+};
+
+$comments = Comments::all();
+foreach ($comments as &$comment) {
+    $comment['excerpt'] = $truncate($comment['body']);
+}
+unset($comment);
+
+return [
+    'comments'  => $comments,
+    'notice'    => Session::getFlash('comments_notice'),
+    'error'     => Session::getFlash('comments_error'),
+    'csrfField' => Csrf::fieldName(),
+    'csrfToken' => Csrf::token(),
+];
@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+{% extends layout %}
+
+{% import '_layout/icons.twig' as icons %}
+
+{% block title %}Comments{% endblock %}
+
+{% block description %}Moderate comments left across the site.{% endblock %}
+
+{% block robots %}noindex, nofollow{% endblock %}
+
+{% block content %}
+    <article>
+        <h1 class="icon-heading">{{ icons.users() }}Comments</h1>
+
+        <p>Every comment left via <code>Lib\Comments</code>, across every page — auto-approved on submission (only a verified account can post one), moderated here after the fact instead of a pending queue. Hiding a comment removes it from its page immediately; deleting it is permanent. See <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/comments">{{ icons.book() }}Comments</a>.</p>
+
+        {% if notice %}
+            <p><strong>{{ notice }}</strong></p>
+        {% endif %}
+
+        {% if error %}
+            <p><strong>{{ error }}</strong></p>
+        {% endif %}
+
+        {% if comments is empty %}
+            <p>No comments yet.</p>
+        {% else %}
+            <table>
+                <thead>
+                    <tr>
+                        <th>Page</th>
+                        <th>User</th>
+                        <th>Comment</th>
+                        <th>Posted</th>
+                        <th>Status</th>
+                        <th>Actions</th>
+                    </tr>
+                </thead>
+                <tbody>
+                    {% for comment in comments %}
+                        <tr>
+                            <td><a href="{{ comment.page_path }}">{{ comment.page_path }}</a></td>
+                            <td>{{ comment.username }}</td>
+                            <td>{{ comment.excerpt }}</td>
+                            <td>{{ comment.created_at }}</td>
+                            <td>{{ comment.is_hidden ? 'Hidden' : 'Visible' }}</td>
+                            <td>
+                                <form method="post" action="/admin/comments">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="id" value="{{ comment.id }}">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="action" value="{{ comment.is_hidden ? 'show' : 'hide' }}">
+                                    <button type="submit">{{ comment.is_hidden ? 'Show' : 'Hide' }}</button>
+                                </form>
+                                <form method="post" action="/admin/comments">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="id" value="{{ comment.id }}">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="action" value="delete">
+                                    <button type="submit">Delete</button>
+                                </form>
+                            </td>
+                        </tr>
+                    {% endfor %}
+                </tbody>
+            </table>
+        {% endif %}
+    </article>
+{% endblock %}
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
            <ul>
                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs">{{ icons.book() }}Overview</a></li>
                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/getting-started">{{ icons.book() }}Getting started</a></li>
+                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/docker">{{ icons.book() }}Docker</a></li>
                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/routing">{{ icons.link() }}Routing</a></li>
                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/sidecars">{{ icons.book() }}Sidecars</a></li>
                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/forms">{{ icons.email() }}Forms</a></li>
@@ -19,7 +20,10 @@
                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/sitemap">{{ icons.sitemap() }}XML sitemap</a></li>
                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/rss">{{ icons.rss() }}RSS feeds</a></li>
                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">{{ icons.lock() }}Admin authentication</a></li>
+                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/access-control">{{ icons.lock() }}Access control</a></li>
                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/drafts">{{ icons.lock() }}Draft pages</a></li>
+                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/media-manager">{{ icons.tag() }}Media manager</a></li>
+                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/comments">{{ icons.users() }}Comments</a></li>
                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/layouts">{{ icons.book() }}Layouts</a></li>
                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/caching">{{ icons.book() }}Static caching</a></li>
                <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/seo">{{ icons.book() }}SEO</a></li>
@@ -0,0 +1,70 @@
+{% extends 'admin/docs/_layout/layout.twig' %}
+
+{% import '_layout/icons.twig' as icons %}
+
+{% block title %}Access control{% endblock %}
+
+{% block description %}Assign a page or section to a user or group from its sidecar with Lib\Access — public by default, static pages always public.{% endblock %}
+
+{% block robots %}noindex, nofollow{% endblock %}
+
+{% block docs_content %}
+    <h1>Access control</h1>
+
+    <p><code>Lib\Access</code> (<code>novaconium/lib/Access.php</code>) assigns a page to a user, a group, or just "anyone logged in" — from the page's own sidecar, using the accounts <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">{{ icons.lock() }}Admin authentication</a> manages at <a href="/admin/users">/admin/users</a>. One call at the top of <code>index.php</code>:</p>
+
+    <pre><code>&lt;?php
+
+use Lib\Access;
+
+if ($denied = Access::require('group:members')) {
+    return $denied;
+}
+
+return [
+    // ...normal sidecar context...
+];</code></pre>
+
+    <p><code>Access::require()</code> returns <code>null</code> when the request may proceed, or a <code>Response</code> the sidecar returns as-is: nobody logged in → a <code>303</code> to <a href="/admin/login">/admin/login</a> carrying a <code>?return=</code> path so a successful login lands right back on the page they wanted; logged in but not allowed → a plain <code>404</code>, the same hide-don't-tease posture as <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/drafts">{{ icons.lock() }}draft pages</a>.</p>
+
+    <h2>Rules</h2>
+
+    <ul>
+        <li><code>Access::require()</code> — no rules: any logged-in user (admin or registered).</li>
+        <li><code>Access::require('group:members')</code> — users whose group (assigned at <a href="/admin/users">/admin/users</a>) is <code>members</code>. Each user has at most one group; a group is just a text label, matched exactly — there's no groups table to manage.</li>
+        <li><code>Access::require('user:bob')</code> — exactly that account.</li>
+        <li><code>Access::require('group:members', 'user:bob')</code> — several rules mean <em>any</em> of them grants access.</li>
+    </ul>
+
+    <p><strong>Admins always pass every rule</strong> — the admin role exists to run the site, so there's no way to write a rule that locks an admin out of content.</p>
+
+    <h2>Public is the default — and static pages are always public</h2>
+
+    <p>A sidecar that never calls <code>Access::require()</code> is completely untouched by all of this, and a page with no sidecar at all <em>can't</em> call it — so sidecar-less pages are always public. That's load-bearing rather than incidental: only sidecar-less pages are ever written to the <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/caching">{{ icons.book() }}static HTML cache</a>, which Apache serves before PHP (and therefore any access check) runs. Because a gated page necessarily has a sidecar, it's never statically cached, so there's no way to leak a gated page through the cache — the caching/auth rule that drafts and <code>/admin/*</code> need explicit cache exclusions for is satisfied here by construction.</p>
+
+    <h2>Gating a section</h2>
+
+    <p>There's no per-directory config for this — a "section" is gated by giving each page in it a sidecar with the same check, which stays visible and greppable at the page level. To keep the rule itself in one place, put a <code>_access.php</code> file in the section directory (any file that isn't <code>index.php</code>/<code>index.twig</code> is invisible to the router) and <code>require</code> it from each sidecar — a PHP file can return a value, so it composes exactly like a direct call:</p>
+
+    <pre><code>&lt;?php
+// App/pages/members/_access.php — the section's one shared rule
+use Lib\Access;
+
+return Access::require('group:members');</code></pre>
+
+    <pre><code>&lt;?php
+// App/pages/members/anything/index.php — each page in the section
+if ($denied = require dirname(__DIR__) . '/_access.php') {
+    return $denied;
+}
+
+return [];</code></pre>
+
+    <h2>Interactions worth knowing</h2>
+
+    <ul>
+        <li><strong>Off means open.</strong> With <code>admin_auth_enabled</code> off (or while no users exist yet), <code>Access::require()</code> allows everything — there'd be nothing to log in as. Same open-until-configured posture as the rest of admin auth, and the same zero-footprint guarantee: it never touches <code>Lib\Db</code> in that state.</li>
+        <li><strong>Gated pages stay out of <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/content-index">{{ icons.search() }}search and the sitemap</a> automatically.</strong> The content-index crawl runs every sidecar as an anonymous GET, so a gated sidecar short-circuits to the login redirect and the crawler skips the page — nothing to configure, verified for real. <code>require()</code> also has no side effects on deny (the return path travels in the redirect URL, not the session), so a crawl can't scribble on the visiting user's session.</li>
+        <li><strong>Who's logged in?</strong> A sidecar that wants to greet the user (or vary content by account) can read <code>App\AdminAuth::currentUser()</code> — <code>id</code>/<code>username</code>/<code>email</code>/<code>role</code>/<code>user_group</code>, or <code>null</code> — and pass what it needs into its template context.</li>
+    </ul>
+{% endblock %}
@@ -4,49 +4,80 @@

 {% block title %}Admin authentication{% endblock %}

-{% block description %}Gating /admin/* behind HTTP Basic Auth, reusable for any future admin page.{% endblock %}
+{% block description %}Session-based login with admin/registered roles, groups, and user management, gating /admin/* and draft pages.{% endblock %}

 {% block robots %}noindex, nofollow{% endblock %}

 {% block docs_content %}
    <h1>Admin authentication</h1>

-    <p>Every route under <code>/admin/*</code> — <code>/admin</code>, <code>/admin/clear-cache</code>, the docs section, and any admin page a project adds later — can be gated behind HTTP Basic Auth with two <code>App/config.php</code> keys. It's off by default (same posture as Matomo): an empty <code>admin_password_hash</code> means no gate at all, matching this project's original wide-open behavior.</p>
+    <p>Every route under <code>/admin/*</code> — <code>/admin</code>, <code>/admin/clear-cache</code>, the docs section, and any admin page a project adds later — can be gated behind a session-based login against a <code>users</code> table in the <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/database">{{ icons.book() }}database</a>'s <code>default</code> connection. It's off by default (same posture as the <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/content-index">{{ icons.search() }}content index</a>, and for the same reason: it depends on SQLite, a real dependency plenty of sites won't want): with <code>admin_auth_enabled</code> left <code>false</code>, <code>/admin/*</code> is wide open, <code>/admin/login</code>, <code>/admin/logout</code>, and <code>/admin/users</code> all <code>404</code> as if they didn't exist, and nothing ever touches <code>Lib\Db</code> because of this feature — no <code>data/novaconium.sqlite</code> gets created just because the code exists.</p>

-    <p>This replaced the old <code>docs_enabled</code> config flag, which only hid the docs section specifically. Since this gate covers all of <code>/admin/*</code> — including docs — there's no need for a separate docs-only toggle anymore; set a password and the whole admin area (docs included) requires login.</p>
+    <p>This replaced the original single-user HTTP Basic Auth stopgap (an <code>admin_username</code>/<code>admin_password_hash</code> config pair — both keys, and the <code>/admin/password-hash</code> hash-generator page, are gone). Same call sites in <code>bootstrap.php</code>, new mechanism: multiple accounts, real server-side login state (riding on <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/session">{{ icons.book() }}<code>Lib\Session</code></a>), and user management in the browser.</p>
+
+    <h2>Two roles: admin and registered</h2>
+
+    <p>The <strong>first user ever created is the admin</strong>; every user created after that is <strong>registered</strong>. An admin runs the site: full <code>/admin/*</code> access, sees <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/drafts">{{ icons.lock() }}draft pages</a>, and passes every <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/access-control">{{ icons.lock() }}<code>Lib\Access</code></a> rule. A registered user can log in at the same <a href="/admin/login">/admin/login</a> and sees whatever content <code>Lib\Access</code> assigns to their account or their group — but <code>/admin/*</code> returns a plain <code>404</code> for them, not a login prompt (they <em>are</em> logged in; what they lack is the role). Each registered user can be assigned at most one <strong>group</strong> — a plain text label (e.g. <code>members</code>) that <code>Access::require('group:members')</code> matches exactly; there's no groups table to manage.</p>

    <h2>Enabling it</h2>

-    <p>Generate a password hash once — either on the command line:</p>
-
-    <pre><code>php -r "echo password_hash('yourpassword', PASSWORD_DEFAULT), PHP_EOL;"</code></pre>
-
-    <p>...or, if you'd rather not touch a terminal, at <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/password-hash">{{ icons.lock() }}/admin/password-hash</a> — a small built-in form that does the same <code>password_hash()</code> call and hands back a ready-to-paste config snippet. Nothing typed there is stored or logged. Since it lives under <code>/admin/*</code> like everything else here, it's automatically covered by this same gate once a password is set — reachable while <code>admin_password_hash</code> is still empty (so you can generate your first one), then protected like any other admin page afterward.</p>
-
-    <p>Then set both keys in <code>App/config.php</code>:</p>
+    <p>Turn it on in <code>App/config.php</code>:</p>

    <pre><code>&lt;?php
 // App/config.php
 return [
-    'admin_username'      =&gt; 'admin',
-    'admin_password_hash' =&gt; '$2y$10$...',
+    'admin_auth_enabled' =&gt; true,
 ];</code></pre>

-    <p>Every request into <code>/admin/*</code> now requires that username/password via the browser's built-in Basic Auth prompt; anything outside <code>/admin</code> is unaffected.</p>
+    <p>Since this is the first SQLite-backed feature most sites turn on, make sure PHP has the <code>pdo_sqlite</code> extension enabled first (<code>php -m | grep -i sqlite</code>) — it's bundled with PHP but not always enabled; Debian/Ubuntu package it as <code>php-sqlite3</code>. Without it, the first request into <code>/admin/*</code> fails naming the missing extension. See <a href="/admin/docs">Overview</a>'s requirements list.</p>
+
+    <p>Enabling the flag alone protects nothing yet — <strong>while zero users exist, the whole admin area stays open</strong>, precisely so the first user (the admin) can be created. Do that either in the browser at <a href="/admin/users">/admin/users</a> (you're logged in as the first user automatically the moment it's created, and the gate closes), or from the command line:</p>
+
+    <pre><code>php novaconium/bin/create-admin-user.php admin admin@example.com</code></pre>
+
+    <p>The CLI reads the password from stdin (echo suppressed at an interactive prompt, and pipeable from a deploy script), and always creates an <em>admin</em> — it exists for first-user setup and lockout recovery, both of which need one; registered users are created at <code>/admin/users</code>. Running it <em>before</em> flipping <code>admin_auth_enabled</code> on is the safer order — the open setup window then never exists at all.</p>
+
+    <p>The <code>users</code> table ships as a framework migration (<code>novaconium/migrations/0002_create_users.sql</code>) and is created automatically the first time anything touches the <code>default</code> connection — no manual schema step. Passwords are stored as <code>password_hash()</code> hashes and checked with <code>password_verify()</code>; no plaintext, and nothing here ever selects the hash back out except to verify a login. Every account also has a <strong>unique email address</strong>, stored normalized (trimmed, lowercased, via <code>Lib\Validate::isEmail()</code>) — not used for login (that's the username), but every account after the first now must verify it before logging in (see below).</p>
+
+    <h2>Email verification</h2>
+
+    <p>Every user created after the first must click a link emailed to their address before they can log in at all — <code>AdminAuth::attempt()</code> fails a login the same generic way it fails a disabled account or a wrong password, with no distinction made to an anonymous caller between "wrong password", "disabled", and "unverified" (the <code>verified_at</code> column in <code>novaconium/migrations/0002_create_users.sql</code>). Two accounts are exempt by design, both following the same reasoning as the last-active-admin guard elsewhere on this page — verification can't depend on a mail transport actually being configured:</p>
+
+    <ul>
+        <li><strong>The very first user</strong> (created at <a href="/admin/users">/admin/users</a> or via the CLI below) is auto-verified at creation — there's no other admin to have vouched for them, and they're logged in immediately afterward regardless.</li>
+        <li><strong>Every row that existed before this feature shipped</strong> is grandfathered — the migration backfills <code>verified_at</code> from <code>created_at</code>, so nobody who could already log in gets locked out retroactively.</li>
+    </ul>
+
+    <p>Every other new account gets a 24-hour verification link (<code>bin2hex(random_bytes(32))</code>, the same token pattern <code>Lib\Csrf::token()</code> uses) sent via <code>Lib\Mailer::sendMail()</code> to <code>/verify-email?token=...</code>. That route follows the same GET-confirms/POST-mutates shape as <a href="/admin/logout">/admin/logout</a>, and for the same two reasons: the content-index crawl hits every routable page as a forced GET, and email-security scanners prefetch links before a human clicks — either would burn a GET-mutates link's token. An invalid, already-used, or expired token never touches the database on either method — it just renders an "invalid or expired" page pointing back at <code>/admin/users</code>. Changing an account's email (the <code>email</code> action at <code>/admin/users</code>) resets verification and sends a fresh link to the <em>new</em> address, since an unconfirmed new address shouldn't inherit the old one's verified status — and because <code>AdminAuth::currentUser()</code> re-checks <code>verified_at</code> on every request (the same immediate re-check <code>is_disabled</code> already gets), a live session is locked out on its very next request too, not just future logins.</p>
+
+    <p><code>Lib\Mailer::sendMail()</code> is separate from the pre-existing <code>Mailer::send()</code> the contact form uses (unchanged) — it's driver-dispatched via <code>mail_driver</code> in <code>App/config.php</code>: <code>'log'</code> (the default) appends to the same <code>novaconium/contact-log.txt</code> the contact form uses, so a fresh checkout can create and verify accounts with zero external dependency; <code>'mailjet'</code> sends through MailJet's Send API v3.1 using <code>mailjet_api_key</code>/<code>mailjet_api_secret</code> plus <code>mail_from_email</code>/<code>mail_from_name</code>. Adding a different provider later means adding a new case to that dispatch — callers of <code>sendMail()</code> never change.</p>
+
+    <h2>Managing users</h2>
+
+    <p><a href="/admin/users">/admin/users</a> lists every account and handles the rest: create a user (registered, with an email address and an optional group — only the very first is the admin), disable/enable one, assign or change a group, promote/demote between admin and registered, change an email address, change a password, and delete an account outright. Behaviors worth knowing:</p>
+
+    <ul>
+        <li><strong>Disabling is immediate.</strong> A disabled user can't log in, and any session they already had is re-checked against the table on its next request — there's no "still logged in until the session expires" window. The same immediate re-check applies to a role or group change.</li>
+        <li><strong>The last active admin can't be disabled, demoted, or deleted.</strong> Any of the three would lock everyone out of <code>/admin/*</code> permanently (the zero-users setup window doesn't reopen — the table isn't empty), leaving only the CLI or hand-editing the database as recovery. The form refuses instead. Registered users carry no such guard.</li>
+        <li><strong>Delete is a hard delete</strong> — the row is gone, the username and email become reusable, and any live session dies on its next request, same as disabling. Disable is the right tool for "shut this account out but keep it"; delete is for accounts that shouldn't exist at all.</li>
+        <li><strong>More admins are allowed</strong> — "first user is the admin" is the default, not a cap; promote a registered user any time.</li>
+    </ul>

    <h2>How it's wired</h2>

-    <p><code>novaconium/src/AdminAuth.php</code> is a single reusable check — <code>AdminAuth::requireLogin($username, $passwordHash)</code> — called once from <code>novaconium/bootstrap.php</code> for any resolved route whose path is <code>admin</code> or starts with <code>admin/</code>, and only for routes that actually resolved (no login prompt on an unrelated 404). Because the check lives in <code>bootstrap.php</code> rather than on each page, <strong>a new admin page needs zero extra wiring</strong> to be protected — dropping a new directory under <code>App/pages/admin/</code> or <code>novaconium/pages/admin/</code> is automatically gated the moment it exists.</p>
+    <p><code>novaconium/src/AdminAuth.php</code> is a pair of reusable checks called once from <code>novaconium/bootstrap.php</code> for any resolved route whose path is <code>admin</code> or starts with <code>admin/</code>, and only for routes that actually resolved (no redirect on an unrelated 404): <code>AdminAuth::requireLogin($enabled)</code> redirects anyone not logged in to the login form, then <code>AdminAuth::isAdmin($enabled)</code> 404s anyone who <em>is</em> logged in but isn't an admin — a registered user is authenticated, so bouncing them back to the login form would be a lie. Because the checks live in <code>bootstrap.php</code> rather than on each page, <strong>a new admin page needs zero extra wiring</strong> to be protected — dropping a new directory under <code>App/pages/admin/</code> or <code>novaconium/pages/admin/</code> is automatically gated the moment it exists. The one exemption is <code>admin/login</code> itself, which has to stay reachable logged-out or the redirect to it would loop.</p>

-    <p>The credential check itself is a separate method, <code>AdminAuth::isAuthenticated($username, $passwordHash)</code> — <code>requireLogin()</code> is just that check plus the <code>401</code>-challenge response on failure. <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/drafts">{{ icons.lock() }}Draft pages</a> reuse <code>isAuthenticated()</code> directly with a different failure response (a plain <code>404</code>, not a login prompt), rather than duplicating the credential logic.</p>
+    <p>The login form is a normal page with a normal form: CSRF-protected like every other form here (see <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/forms">{{ icons.email() }}Forms</a>), reading the username via <code>Lib\Input</code> and the password straight from <code>$_POST</code> (the documented exact-value exception — cleaning would strip characters like <code>&lt;</code>/<code>&gt;</code> and fail a login whose password actually matches). A successful login regenerates the session id (<code>Session::regenerate()</code>) before storing the user id, so a session id planted or observed pre-login never becomes an authenticated one — then lands on <code>?return=</code> (how <code>Lib\Access</code> sends someone back to the gated page they wanted; validated to be a local path, never another site), or, with no return path, on <code>/admin</code> for admins and the homepage for registered users.</p>
+
+    <p><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/drafts">{{ icons.lock() }}Draft pages</a> reuse <code>isAdmin()</code> directly with a different failure response (a plain <code>404</code> for <em>everyone</em> unauthorized, never a login redirect), rather than duplicating the logic. The session cookie is scoped to the whole origin, so logging in once at <code>/admin/login</code> covers draft URLs and <code>Lib\Access</code>-gated pages too.</p>
+
+    <p>Templates can read the <code>admin_auth_enabled</code> Twig global (it mirrors the config flag) — <code>admin/index.twig</code> uses it to show the "Admin users" and "Logout" links only when the feature is on. It's a display flag only; enforcement never depends on Twig.</p>

    <h2>Logging out</h2>

-    <p>HTTP Basic Auth has no real server-side logout — the browser just keeps resending the same cached credentials on every request to that realm. Visiting <code>/admin/logout</code> works around this: <code>AdminAuth::logout()</code> always issues a fresh <code>401</code> challenge, regardless of what credentials were sent, which makes the browser discard what it had cached and prompt again the next time <code>/admin</code> is visited. Credentials themselves aren't invalidated server-side (there's nothing to invalidate — it's just a password check on every request), so this is a client-side-only logout, same as any Basic Auth site. The "Logout" link only appears on <code>/admin</code> when <code>admin_auth_enabled</code> is true (i.e. a password is actually set).</p>
+    <p><a href="/admin/logout">/admin/logout</a> is a real server-side logout now (its Basic Auth predecessor could only trick the browser into forgetting cached credentials with a fresh <code>401</code>): a POST — with a small GET confirm form, same shape as <code>/admin/clear-cache</code> — that drops the logged-in user id from the session, regenerates the session id, and redirects to the login form. It's deliberately not logout-on-GET: sidecars must stay side-effect-free on GET, both as ordinary HTTP hygiene and because the <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/content-index">{{ icons.search() }}content index</a>'s crawl invokes every page's sidecar the way a real GET would — a logout-on-GET would end the crawling admin's own session the moment a lazy reindex rendered this page.</p>

    <h2>What this is (and isn't)</h2>

-    <p>This is HTTP Basic Auth against a single username/password pair in config — no sessions, no user table, no password reset, no multiple accounts. It's a deliberate stopgap: see <code>novaconium/ISSUES.md</code>'s "Admin login &amp; user management" entry for the planned real multi-user system (backed by SQLite, with proper sessions). That feature will <em>replace</em> this mechanism, not layer on top of it. Until then, this is enough to keep the general public out of <code>/admin</code> on a production site.</p>
-
-    <p>Basic Auth credentials are sent base64-encoded on every request (not encrypted) — always serve <code>/admin</code> over HTTPS in production, same as any password-protected page.</p>
+    <p>This is authentication plus a deliberately small authorization model: two roles and one group label per user, matched by <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/access-control">{{ icons.lock() }}<code>Lib\Access</code></a> rules in sidecars — no permissions matrix, no role hierarchy, no per-admin capability flags. Registration is admin-driven only; there's no self-serve sign-up form. Sessions are PHP's native ones via <code>Lib\Session</code>, with the same cookie hardening it always applies (<code>httponly</code>, <code>SameSite=Lax</code>, <code>secure</code> on HTTPS). As with any password form, serve <code>/admin</code> over HTTPS in production.</p>
 {% endblock %}
@@ -13,13 +13,13 @@

    <p>If a page has <strong>no</strong> sidecar, its rendered HTML is written to <code>public/cache/&lt;path&gt;/index.html</code> after the first request. <code>.htaccess</code> checks for that file before PHP ever runs, so repeat visits are served straight by Apache with zero PHP/Twig overhead. Pages with a sidecar are never cached this way, since their output can vary per request.</p>

-    <p>Two kinds of route are excluded from the cache unconditionally, regardless of whether they have a sidecar: every <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/drafts">{{ icons.lock() }}draft page</a> and every <code>/admin/*</code> route. Both are gated by <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">{{ icons.lock() }}HTTP Basic Auth</a>, and a cached copy would bypass that check entirely — <code>.htaccess</code> serves a cached file before PHP (and therefore any auth check) ever runs, so a cached admin or draft page would be served to anyone, unauthenticated, forever after the first authenticated view. See <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/drafts">{{ icons.lock() }}Draft pages</a> for the full write-up.</p>
+    <p>Two kinds of route are excluded from the cache unconditionally, regardless of whether they have a sidecar: every <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/drafts">{{ icons.lock() }}draft page</a> and every <code>/admin/*</code> route. Both are gated by the <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">{{ icons.lock() }}admin login</a>, and a cached copy would bypass that check entirely — <code>.htaccess</code> serves a cached file before PHP (and therefore any auth check) ever runs, so a cached admin or draft page would be served to anyone, unauthenticated, forever after the first authenticated view. See <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/drafts">{{ icons.lock() }}Draft pages</a> for the full write-up.</p>

    <p>To force a single page to re-render, delete its file under <code>public/cache/</code>. To clear everything at once, there are two equivalent options:</p>

    <ul>
        <li><strong>CLI:</strong> <code>php novaconium/bin/clear-cache.php</code> — a standalone script for deploys, cron jobs, or anywhere you'd rather not go through a browser. Prints <code>Cache cleared.</code> and exits.</li>
-        <li><strong>Web:</strong> <a href="/admin/clear-cache">/admin/clear-cache</a> — a POST form under <code>/admin</code>, covered by the same <a href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">HTTP Basic Auth gate</a> as the rest of <code>/admin/*</code> once a password is set.</li>
+        <li><strong>Web:</strong> <a href="/admin/clear-cache">/admin/clear-cache</a> — a POST form under <code>/admin</code>, covered by the same <a href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">admin login gate</a> as the rest of <code>/admin/*</code> once admin auth is enabled.</li>
    </ul>

    <p>Both end up calling the same underlying <code>Cache::clear()</code> — see <code>/admin/docs/config</code>'s "For developers: using <code>Cache.php</code> directly" section for how each entry point constructs it. Clearing the cache only deletes the generated static HTML; it doesn't affect <code>App/pages/</code> or any other source. Any project change that should show up on an already-cached page — a new <code>site_name</code>, a new Sass color, a new admin toggle — needs a cache clear before it's visible, since the old <code>index.html</code> would otherwise keep being served as-is.</p>
@@ -0,0 +1,52 @@
+{% extends 'admin/docs/_layout/layout.twig' %}
+
+{% import '_layout/icons.twig' as icons %}
+
+{% block title %}Comments{% endblock %}
+
+{% block description %}Lib\Comments — a reusable comment thread any page can attach to itself via its own sidecar.{% endblock %}
+
+{% block robots %}noindex, nofollow{% endblock %}
+
+{% block docs_content %}
+    <h1>Comments</h1>
+
+    <p><code>Lib\Comments</code> is a self-hosted comment thread — no third-party service (Disqus, Commento, etc.) — a plain static class any sidecar can call to attach comments to any page, not just blog posts, the same way <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/forms">{{ icons.email() }}<code>Lib\SpamGuard</code>/<code>Lib\FormValidator</code></a> are reusable across any form rather than hardcoded to the contact page. It depends on <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">{{ icons.lock() }}admin authentication</a> being enabled — comments are tied to a real logged-in account (<code>App\AdminAuth::currentUser()</code>), never anonymous name/email fields, since <code>currentUser()</code> already excludes disabled and unverified accounts, there's nothing further to check before accepting a comment from whoever it returns.</p>
+
+    <h2>Auto-approve, moderate after</h2>
+
+    <p>A comment is visible the instant it's posted — there's no pending-approval queue. Since only a verified account can post one at all, there's no anonymous-spam vector to pre-vet against, the same reasoning <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">{{ icons.lock() }}admin authentication</a> already applies by disabling rather than pre-vetting accounts. An admin can hide or permanently delete any comment after the fact at <a href="/admin/comments">/admin/comments</a> — hiding removes it from its page immediately (it's excluded at the query level, not just visually), deleting is permanent.</p>
+
+    <h2>Attaching a thread to a page</h2>
+
+    <p>A page needs its own sidecar to use <code>Lib\Comments</code> — this codebase has no client-side JS/fetch anywhere, every dynamic feature is a plain server-rendered POST form, and comments are no different. Giving a page a sidecar is exactly what excludes it from the <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/caching">{{ icons.book() }}static HTML cache</a> (only sidecar-less pages are ever cached), so attaching comments to a previously sidecar-less page is an explicit, per-page tradeoff — the same one <a href="/admin/media">/admin/media</a> and <a href="/search">/search</a> already accept. See <code>App/pages/blog/comments-demo/index.php</code> for a full worked example (the one post under <code>App/pages/blog/</code> with a sidecar, specifically for this):</p>
+
+    <pre><code>$pagePath = Comments::currentPagePath();
+$user = AdminAuth::currentUser();
+
+if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
+    if (!Csrf::verify(Input::post('csrf_token'))) { ... }
+    if ($user === null) { ... }               // must be logged in
+    // validate $body, run it past SpamGuard, then:
+    Comments::create($pagePath, $user['id'], $body);
+    return Response::redirect($pagePath);
+}
+
+return [
+    'comments'    => Comments::forPage($pagePath),
+    'currentUser' => $user,
+    // ...csrfField/csrfToken/renderedAt, same as any other form sidecar
+];</code></pre>
+
+    <p>Then include the reusable partial, <code>novaconium/pages/_partials/comments/thread.twig</code> — a <code>_</code>-prefixed segment, so it's never itself routable (see <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/routing">{{ icons.link() }}Routing</a>'s reserved-segments rule), the same convention <code>_layout/</code> already uses:</p>
+
+    <pre><code class="nohighlight">{% verbatim %}{% if comments is defined %}
+    {% include '_partials/comments/thread.twig' %}
+{% endif %}{% endverbatim %}</code></pre>
+
+    <p>Guarding the include with <code>comments is defined</code> — as <code>App/pages/blog/_layout/layout.twig</code> does — means a layout shared by both comment-enabled and sidecar-less pages can include it unconditionally without breaking the pages that never set the key. The partial itself expects <code>comments</code>, <code>currentUser</code>, <code>csrfField</code>/<code>csrfToken</code>, and <code>renderedAt</code> in context — the same shape returned above — and renders the thread plus a honeypot-carrying submit form (mirroring the contact form's spam prevention, see <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/forms">{{ icons.email() }}Forms</a>) when someone's logged in, or a "log in to comment" link otherwise.</p>
+
+    <h2>Schema</h2>
+
+    <p>Ships as a framework migration, <code>novaconium/migrations/0003_create_comments.sql</code> — a <code>comments</code> table (<code>id</code>, <code>page_path</code>, <code>user_id</code>, <code>body</code>, <code>is_hidden</code>, <code>created_at</code>) on the same <code>default</code> connection as <code>users</code>, applied automatically the first time anything touches it, no manual step. <code>page_path</code> is whatever <code>Comments::currentPagePath()</code> derives from the request (e.g. <code>/blog/comments-demo</code>) — free-text, not a foreign key, so a thread survives even if the page it was attached to is later restructured.</p>
+{% endblock %}
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 {% block docs_content %}
    <h1>Configuration</h1>

-    <p><code>novaconium/config.php</code> holds the framework defaults — <code>pages_dirs</code>, <code>cache_dir</code>, <code>debug</code>, <code>site_name</code>, <code>matomo_url</code>, <code>matomo_site_id</code>, <code>admin_username</code>, <code>admin_password_hash</code>, <code>db_connections</code>, <code>draft_routes</code> — and is not meant to be edited per-project, same as everything else under <code>novaconium/</code>.</p>
+    <p><code>novaconium/config.php</code> holds the framework defaults — <code>pages_dirs</code>, <code>cache_dir</code>, <code>debug</code>, <code>site_name</code>, <code>matomo_url</code>, <code>matomo_site_id</code>, <code>admin_auth_enabled</code>, <code>db_connections</code>, <code>draft_routes</code> — and is not meant to be edited per-project, same as everything else under <code>novaconium/</code>.</p>

    <p><code>App/config.php</code> ships with the skeleton as an empty, commented placeholder — uncomment (or add) whichever keys you want to change, returning an array of just those:</p>

@@ -37,11 +37,11 @@ return [

    <h2>Admin authentication</h2>

-    <p><code>admin_username</code> / <code>admin_password_hash</code> gate every <code>/admin/*</code> route behind HTTP Basic Auth — see <a href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">Admin authentication</a> for the full write-up. Both are set via <code>App/config.php</code>; leaving <code>admin_password_hash</code> empty (the default) disables the gate.</p>
+    <p><code>admin_auth_enabled</code> (default <code>false</code>) gates every <code>/admin/*</code> route behind a session login against the <code>users</code> table — see <a href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">Admin authentication</a> for the full write-up, including roles (the first user is the admin; the rest are registered) and how the first user gets created. The same flag powers <a href="/admin/docs/access-control">Access control</a> (<code>Lib\Access</code>) for member/group-gated content. When left off, <code>/admin/*</code> is open, the login/users routes <code>404</code>, and <code>Access::require()</code> allows everything.</p>

    <h2>Draft pages</h2>

-    <p><code>draft_routes</code> (default <code>[]</code>) is a list of routes only an authenticated admin can see — everyone else gets a plain <code>404</code>. Requires <code>admin_password_hash</code> above to be set to actually gate anything. See <a href="/admin/docs/drafts">Draft pages</a> for the full write-up, including why a cached draft page would be a security problem and how that's avoided.</p>
+    <p><code>draft_routes</code> (default <code>[]</code>) is a list of routes only an authenticated admin can see — everyone else gets a plain <code>404</code>. Requires <code>admin_auth_enabled</code> above (and at least one user) to actually gate anything. See <a href="/admin/docs/drafts">Draft pages</a> for the full write-up, including why a cached draft page would be a security problem and how that's avoided.</p>

    <h2>For developers: using <code>Cache.php</code> directly</h2>

@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+{% extends 'admin/docs/_layout/layout.twig' %}
+
+{% block title %}Docker{% endblock %}
+
+{% block description %}Running novaconium in a container: the Apache/PHP image, its four bind-mounted paths, and how docker-entrypoint.sh seeds and permissions them.{% endblock %}
+
+{% block robots %}noindex, nofollow{% endblock %}
+
+{% block docs_content %}
+    <h1>Docker</h1>
+
+    <p>The root <code>Dockerfile</code> builds on the official <a href="https://hub.docker.com/_/php"><code>php:8.3-apache</code></a> image, with <code>mod_rewrite</code>, <code>AllowOverride All</code>, and <code>pdo_sqlite</code>/<code>pdo_mysql</code> already enabled — nothing else in <a href="/admin/docs/getting-started">Getting started</a>'s "Deploy on Apache" section needs configuring by hand.</p>
+
+    <pre><code>docker compose up --build</code></pre>
+
+    <p>Visit <code>http://localhost:8080/</code>.</p>
+
+    <h2>The bind mounts</h2>
+
+    <p><code>docker-compose.yml</code> bind-mounts four host paths under <code>${VOL_PATH:-/data}/novaconium/</code> (override <code>VOL_PATH</code> in the environment to relocate all four at once) so a project's content, uploads, cache, and database live on the host — editable without a rebuild, and untouched by the <a href="/admin/docs/getting-started">"Updating the framework"</a> workflow:</p>
+
+    <ul>
+        <li><code>App</code> → <code>/var/www/html/App</code> — the project itself (pages, lib, config, migrations). Edit it on the host; changes show up after <code>docker compose restart web</code>, no rebuild.</li>
+        <li><code>cache</code> → <code>public/cache/</code> — the static HTML page cache (see <a href="/admin/docs/caching">Static caching</a>). Disposable; clear it from inside the container with <code>docker compose exec web php novaconium/bin/clear-cache.php</code>.</li>
+        <li><code>uploads</code> → <code>public/uploads/</code> — files uploaded through <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/media-manager">Media manager</a> (<code>/admin/media</code>).</li>
+        <li><code>data</code> → <code>data/</code> — holds <code>data/novaconium.sqlite</code> if <a href="/admin/docs/database">Database</a>-backed features (admin auth, content index) are enabled.</li>
+    </ul>
+
+    <p>A bind mount to a host directory shadows whatever the image's <code>COPY</code> put at that path — including with nothing at all, if the host directory doesn't exist yet or is empty. Docker doesn't seed a bind mount from image content the way it seeds a fresh named volume. Two consequences the plain image can't handle by itself, both worked around by <code>docker-entrypoint.sh</code> (the container's <code>ENTRYPOINT</code>, runs once per start before Apache):</p>
+
+    <ul>
+        <li><strong>Empty <code>App/</code> on first run.</strong> The Dockerfile stashes a pristine copy of the baked-in <code>App/</code> at <code>/opt/novaconium-app-default</code> at build time. If the bind-mounted <code>/var/www/html/App</code> is empty when the container starts, the entrypoint copies that pristine copy in — so a first <code>docker compose up</code> against a fresh, empty <code>${VOL_PATH}/novaconium/App</code> on the host produces a working site instead of a blank one. It only seeds when the directory is empty, so it never clobbers content you've already put there.</li>
+        <li><strong>Permissions.</strong> A bind mount keeps the host directory's ownership, not the image's — the build-time <code>chown -R www-data:www-data</code> in the Dockerfile only applies to the image layer, not to whatever gets mounted over it. The entrypoint re-runs <code>chown -R www-data:www-data</code> on all four mounted paths on every container start, so Apache's worker user (<code>www-data</code>, the Debian default) can always write to them regardless of the host-side UID/GID — no manual <code>chmod</code> on the host required.</li>
+    </ul>
+
+    <h2>MySQL</h2>
+
+    <p><code>Lib\Db</code> supports MySQL alongside or instead of SQLite (see <a href="/admin/docs/database">Database</a>). <code>docker-compose.yml</code> has a commented-out <code>db</code> service and <code>mysql-data</code> volume — uncomment both, add a <code>db_connections</code> entry with <code>driver: mysql</code> and matching credentials in <code>App/config.php</code>, and the app container can reach it at hostname <code>db</code>.</p>
+
+    <h2>Pinned base image</h2>
+
+    <p>The Dockerfile pins an exact tag (<code>php:8.3-apache</code>), not a floating <code>php:apache</code>, so a rebuild months from now installs the same PHP/Apache/Debian base instead of whatever the tag happens to point at that day. Bump the tag in the <code>FROM</code> line deliberately (e.g. to pick up a PHP security release), then rebuild:</p>
+
+    <pre><code>docker build --no-cache -t novaconium-beta .</code></pre>
+
+    <p><code>--no-cache</code> is worth using any time you change the Dockerfile itself (not just <code>App/</code> content) — Docker otherwise reuses a cached layer for an unchanged-looking <code>RUN</code> step, and <code>docker-compose.yml</code> here uses <code>image:</code> rather than <code>build:</code>, so <code>docker compose up</code> alone never rebuilds at all; you have to <code>docker build</code> (and re-tag, if needed) yourself first.</p>
+
+    <h2>What the image adds on top of <code>php:8.3-apache</code></h2>
+
+    <p>The base image ships Apache with <code>mod_rewrite</code> disabled and <code>AllowOverride None</code>, no <code>pdo_sqlite</code>/<code>pdo_mysql</code>, and a <code>/var/www/html</code> document root. The Dockerfile runs <code>a2enmod rewrite</code>, <code>docker-php-ext-install pdo_sqlite pdo_mysql</code> (after installing <code>libsqlite3-dev</code>, needed to build <code>pdo_sqlite</code>), and rewrites both the vhost and <code>apache2.conf</code> to point the document root at <code>public/</code> and set <code>AllowOverride All</code> there.</p>
+
+    <p>This is a separate Dockerfile from the one-off Dart Sass build tool described in <a href="/admin/docs/styling">Styling</a> — that one lives at <code>Dockerfile.sass</code>, a Debian-based image whose only job is running the <code>sass</code> CLI, not serving the app.</p>
+{% endblock %}
@@ -16,8 +16,7 @@
    <pre><code>&lt;?php
 // App/config.php
 return [
-    'admin_username'      =&gt; 'admin',
-    'admin_password_hash' =&gt; '$2y$10$...',
+    'admin_auth_enabled' =&gt; true,
    'draft_routes'       =&gt; ['blog/upcoming-post'],
 ];</code></pre>

@@ -25,9 +24,9 @@ return [

    <h2>Not a login prompt</h2>

-    <p>An unauthenticated visitor to a draft route gets the site's normal 404 page — not a <code>401</code> Basic Auth challenge like <code>/admin/*</code> gives. This is deliberate: prompting for a login would itself reveal that something is gated at that URL. A draft is indistinguishable from a URL that was never routable in the first place.</p>
+    <p>An unauthenticated visitor to a draft route gets the site's normal 404 page — not a redirect to the login form like <code>/admin/*</code> gives. This is deliberate: bouncing to a login would itself reveal that something is gated at that URL. A draft is indistinguishable from a URL that was never routable in the first place.</p>

-    <p>There's no separate login flow for drafts, and none is needed — <code>AdminAuth::isAuthenticated()</code> (the same credential check <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">{{ icons.lock() }}Admin authentication</a>'s <code>requireLogin()</code> uses) is reused directly. In practice, an admin authenticates once by visiting <code>/admin</code> and entering credentials there; HTTP Basic Auth credentials are scoped to the whole origin/realm, not a single path, so the browser then resends those same credentials automatically on later requests to a draft URL too, without a second prompt.</p>
+    <p>There's no separate login flow for drafts, and none is needed — <code>AdminAuth::isAdmin()</code> (the same check <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">{{ icons.lock() }}Admin authentication</a>'s admin gate uses) is reused directly, so drafts are admin-only: a logged-in <em>registered</em> user gets the same 404 as everyone else (previewing unpublished work is a site-running privilege, not a membership perk — use <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/access-control">{{ icons.lock() }}<code>Lib\Access</code></a> for members-only content). In practice, an admin logs in once at <code>/admin/login</code>; the session cookie is scoped to the whole origin, not a single path, so it covers later requests to a draft URL too. With <code>admin_auth_enabled</code> left off (or while no users exist yet), drafts are open to everyone, consistent with the rest of <code>/admin/*</code>.</p>

    <h2>The caching interaction</h2>

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 {% block docs_content %}
    <h1>Getting started</h1>

-    <p><strong>Requirements:</strong> PHP 8.1+ (uses <code>readonly</code> constructor-promoted properties) and, for production, Apache with <code>mod_rewrite</code> and <code>AllowOverride All</code>. The <a href="/admin/docs/database">Database</a>/<a href="/admin/docs/content-index">Content index</a> features are optional and off by default — see <a href="/admin/docs">Overview</a> for the extensions they need (<code>pdo_sqlite</code>, optionally <code>pdo_mysql</code>/FTS5) if you turn them on.</p>
+    <p><strong>Requirements:</strong> PHP 8.1+ (uses <code>readonly</code> constructor-promoted properties) and, for production, Apache with <code>mod_rewrite</code> and <code>AllowOverride All</code>. The <a href="/admin/docs/database">Database</a>/<a href="/admin/docs/content-index">Content index</a>/<a href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">Admin authentication</a> features are optional and off by default — see <a href="/admin/docs">Overview</a> for the extensions they need (<code>pdo_sqlite</code>, optionally <code>pdo_mysql</code>/FTS5) if you turn them on.</p>

    <h2>Run it locally (no Apache needed)</h2>

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@

 {% block title %}Docs{% endblock %}

-{% block description %}Framework documentation: routing, sidecars, forms, libraries, database, session, content index, XML sitemap, RSS feeds, admin authentication, draft pages, layouts, caching, styling.{% endblock %}
+{% block description %}Framework documentation: routing, sidecars, forms, libraries, database, session, content index, XML sitemap, RSS feeds, admin authentication, draft pages, media manager, comments, layouts, caching, styling.{% endblock %}

 {% block robots %}noindex, nofollow{% endblock %}

@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@

    <ul>
        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/getting-started">{{ icons.book() }}Getting started</a> — requirements, running locally, deploying on Apache.</li>
+        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/docker">{{ icons.book() }}Docker</a> — the Apache/PHP image, its three volumes, and overriding <code>App/</code> without a rebuild.</li>
        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/routing">{{ icons.link() }}Routing</a> — how a URL maps to a directory under <code>App/pages/</code>.</li>
        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/sidecars">{{ icons.book() }}Sidecars</a> — where your PHP logic goes.</li>
        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/forms">{{ icons.email() }}Forms</a> — building a custom form with a sidecar, using the novaconium validation/spam libraries.</li>
@@ -38,8 +39,11 @@
        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/content-index">{{ icons.search() }}Content index</a> — the shared crawler behind <code>/sitemap.xml</code>, <code>/search</code>, and blog tag browsing. Off by default.</li>
        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/sitemap">{{ icons.sitemap() }}XML sitemap</a> — per-page <code>changefreq</code>/<code>priority</code>, what's included, and submitting it to search engines.</li>
        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/rss">{{ icons.rss() }}RSS feeds</a> — <code>Lib\Rss</code>, building one feed or several for any content collection.</li>
-        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">{{ icons.lock() }}Admin authentication</a> — gate <code>/admin/*</code> behind HTTP Basic Auth, reusable for any future admin page.</li>
+        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">{{ icons.lock() }}Admin authentication</a> — gate <code>/admin/*</code> behind a session login, with admin/registered roles, groups, and user management.</li>
+        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/access-control">{{ icons.lock() }}Access control</a> — assign a page or section to a user or group from its sidecar with <code>Lib\Access</code>; public by default, static pages always public.</li>
        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/drafts">{{ icons.lock() }}Draft pages</a> — let an admin preview a page before the public can see it, reusing the same auth check.</li>
+        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/media-manager">{{ icons.tag() }}Media manager</a> — upload, browse, and delete files under <code>public/uploads/</code> from <code>/admin/media</code>.</li>
+        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/comments">{{ icons.users() }}Comments</a> — <code>Lib\Comments</code>, a reusable comment thread any page can attach to itself via its own sidecar.</li>
        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/layouts">{{ icons.book() }}Layouts</a> — pages and layouts are overridable, just like <code>Lib\</code>.</li>
        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/caching">{{ icons.book() }}Static caching</a> — how sidecar-less pages get served as static HTML.</li>
        <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/seo">{{ icons.book() }}SEO</a> — the meta tags every page gets for free, and how to override them.</li>
@@ -26,5 +26,9 @@
        <li><code>Lib\Validate</code> — the lower-level validation primitives <code>FormValidator</code> calls into (<code>isEmail()</code>, <code>minLength()</code>/<code>maxLength()</code>, <code>isMatch()</code>, <code>isPhone()</code>, <code>isPostalCode()</code>/<code>isZipCode()</code>) — call these directly from a sidecar when you just need a validated/normalized value back rather than an accumulated field-error. See <a href="/admin/docs/sidecars">Sidecars</a>' "Spam prevention" section.</li>
        <li><code>Lib\Input</code> — a cleaning accessor for <code>$_POST</code>/<code>$_GET</code> (<code>Input::post()</code>/<code>Input::get()</code>), used by every sidecar instead of the superglobals directly. Defense-in-depth against HTML/script injection, <strong>not</strong> a defense against SQL injection — see <a href="/admin/docs/sidecars">Sidecars</a>' "Form security" section for the full caveat.</li>
        <li><code>Lib\Csrf</code> — standalone session-token CSRF protection (<code>Csrf::token()</code>/<code>::verify()</code>), called directly from a sidecar rather than through <code>FormValidator</code>. See <a href="/admin/docs/sidecars">Sidecars</a>' "Form security" section.</li>
+        <li><code>Lib\Db</code> — the thin no-ORM PDO wrapper behind everything database-backed here. See <a href="/admin/docs/database">Database</a>.</li>
+        <li><code>Lib\Session</code> — native PHP sessions with a consistent get/set/flash API. See <a href="/admin/docs/session">Session</a>.</li>
+        <li><code>Lib\Access</code> — sidecar-level access control: assign a page to a user or group (<code>Access::require('group:members')</code>). See <a href="/admin/docs/access-control">Access control</a>.</li>
+        <li><code>Lib\Rss</code> — a generic RSS 2.0 envelope builder. See <a href="/admin/docs/rss">RSS feeds</a>.</li>
    </ul>
 {% endblock %}
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+{% extends 'admin/docs/_layout/layout.twig' %}
+
+{% import '_layout/icons.twig' as icons %}
+
+{% block title %}Media manager{% endblock %}
+
+{% block description %}Upload, browse, and delete files under public/uploads/ from /admin/media — extension allowlist, filename sanitization, max upload size.{% endblock %}
+
+{% block robots %}noindex, nofollow{% endblock %}
+
+{% block docs_content %}
+    <h1 class="icon-heading">{{ icons.tag() }}Media manager</h1>
+
+    <p><a href="/admin/media">/admin/media</a> is an upload/browse/delete UI for files (images, PDFs, and whatever else you allow) so sidecars and Twig templates have a consistent place to reference uploaded assets from — e.g. a blog post's header image — instead of authors manually copying files into <code>public/</code>. It's a plain directory, <code>public/uploads/</code>, not a database-backed feature: files are already static assets, so there's nothing for <code>Lib\Db</code> to do here.</p>
+
+    <p>Covered by the existing <code>/admin/*</code> auth gate the moment the page exists — unlike <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">{{ icons.lock() }}admin authentication</a> or <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/content-index">{{ icons.search() }}the content index</a>, it has no SQLite dependency to gate behind its own flag, so there's no <code>media_manager_enabled</code> key — it's simply on wherever <code>/admin/*</code> is reachable.</p>
+
+    <h2>Configuration</h2>
+
+    <p>Two keys in <code>App/config.php</code> (framework defaults in <code>novaconium/config.php</code>):</p>
+
+    <ul>
+        <li><code>media_upload_extensions</code> — an allowlist of lowercase extensions (no leading dot), matched case-insensitively against the uploaded filename. Defaults to <code>['jpg', 'jpeg', 'png', 'gif', 'webp', 'svg', 'pdf', 'txt', 'zip']</code>.</li>
+        <li><code>media_upload_max_bytes</code> — caps a single file's size. Defaults to 10 MB. A file larger than PHP's own <code>upload_max_filesize</code>/<code>post_max_size</code> ini limits is rejected by PHP itself before this check ever runs (reported via <code>UPLOAD_ERR_INI_SIZE</code>/<code>UPLOAD_ERR_FORM_SIZE</code>) — raise those ini limits too if you raise <code>media_upload_max_bytes</code> past them.</li>
+    </ul>
+
+    <h2>Safety handling</h2>
+
+    <p>Three things every upload goes through, in <code>novaconium/pages/admin/media/index.php</code>:</p>
+
+    <ul>
+        <li><strong>Extension allowlist</strong> — rejected before the file ever touches disk if its extension isn't in <code>media_upload_extensions</code>.</li>
+        <li><strong>Filename sanitization</strong> — the uploaded filename is run through <code>basename()</code> (strips directory components and <code>..</code>) and then reduced to a safe character set (<code>A-Za-z0-9._-</code>). A name collision gets a <code>-1</code>, <code>-2</code>, etc. suffix rather than overwriting the existing file. Deletes re-derive the same safe name from the request and re-verify with <code>realpath()</code> that the resolved path still lands inside <code>public/uploads/</code> before unlinking anything.</li>
+        <li><strong>Max upload size</strong> — checked against both <code>$_FILES</code>' reported size and PHP's own ini limits (see above).</li>
+    </ul>
+
+    <p>Uploaded files are served directly by Apache at <code>/uploads/&lt;filename&gt;</code> — <code>public/uploads/</code> is a plain static directory, not routed through the framework, the same as <code>public/cache/</code>. It's gitignored per-file with a tracked <code>.gitkeep</code>, the same convention as <code>data/</code> (see <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/project-layout">{{ icons.sitemap() }}Project layout</a>) — uploads are runtime content, not something a fresh checkout should ship with.</p>
+
+    <p>There's no metadata store (alt text, captions) — if you need that later, it's a natural fit for <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/database">{{ icons.book() }}SQLite</a> rather than encoding it into filenames.</p>
+{% endblock %}
@@ -44,9 +44,8 @@ novaconium/          the framework itself — boilerplate, not meant to be edite
            <ol>
                <li>Requires <strong><code>novaconium/autoload.php</code></strong>, registering the <code>Twig\</code>/<code>App\</code>/<code>Lib\</code> class autoloader (see <a href="/admin/docs/libraries">Libraries</a>) before anything below tries to instantiate a class.</li>
                <li>Requires <strong><code>novaconium/config.php</code></strong>, then shallow-merges <strong><code>App/config.php</code></strong> over it if that file exists — see <a href="/admin/docs/config">Configuration</a>.</li>
-                <li>Special-cases <code>/admin/logout</code> directly against the request path — see <a href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">Admin authentication</a> — since it isn't a real page for the router to find.</li>
                <li>Constructs a <strong><code>Router</code></strong> (<code>novaconium/src/Router.php</code>) and calls <code>resolve()</code> to turn the URL into a <strong><code>Route</code></strong> (<code>novaconium/src/Route.php</code>) — see <a href="/admin/docs/routing">Routing</a>.</li>
-                <li>If the resolved route is under <code>admin</code>/<code>admin/*</code>, calls <strong><code>AdminAuth::requireLogin()</code></strong> (<code>novaconium/src/AdminAuth.php</code>), reading that same <code>Route</code>.</li>
+                <li>If the resolved route is under <code>admin</code>/<code>admin/*</code> (except <code>admin/login</code> itself), calls <strong><code>AdminAuth::requireLogin()</code></strong> (<code>novaconium/src/AdminAuth.php</code>), reading that same <code>Route</code>.</li>
                <li>Constructs a <strong><code>Cache</code></strong> (<code>novaconium/src/Cache.php</code>) and a <strong><code>Renderer</code></strong> (<code>novaconium/src/Renderer.php</code>), then calls <code>renderNotFound()</code> or <code>render($route, ...)</code> depending on <code>$route-&gt;found</code> — see <a href="/admin/docs/sidecars">Sidecars</a> for what happens inside <code>Renderer</code> itself (running the matched directory's <code>index.php</code>, if any; resolving the nearest layout; rendering <code>index.twig</code>; writing the static cache for sidecar-less pages).</li>
            </ol>
        </li>
@@ -37,9 +37,8 @@

    <ol>
        <li>Config loads (framework defaults + optional <code>App/config.php</code> override).</li>
-        <li><code>/admin/logout</code> is special-cased directly against the raw request path, before routing even runs — it isn't a real page, so there'd be no <code>Route</code> for it anyway.</li>
        <li><strong><code>Router::resolve()</code> runs</strong> and returns a <code>Route</code> — this is the only place a <code>Route</code> gets created.</li>
-        <li>If <code>$route-&gt;dir</code> is under <code>admin</code>/<code>admin/*</code>, <code>AdminAuth::requireLogin()</code> gates it — reading <code>$route-&gt;dir</code> directly off the value object <code>Router</code> handed back.</li>
+        <li>If <code>$route-&gt;dir</code> is under <code>admin</code>/<code>admin/*</code> (except <code>admin/login</code>, which must stay reachable logged-out), <code>AdminAuth::requireLogin()</code> gates it — reading <code>$route-&gt;dir</code> directly off the value object <code>Router</code> handed back.</li>
        <li><code>Renderer</code> takes over, also just reading the same <code>Route</code>: <code>renderNotFound()</code> if <code>$route-&gt;found</code> is <code>false</code>, otherwise <code>render($route, ...)</code> — using <code>$route-&gt;dir</code> to find the sidecar/layout/template and <code>$route-&gt;params</code> as template context.</li>
    </ol>

@@ -24,6 +24,8 @@ Session::remove('user_id');</code></pre>

    <p>The session is started lazily — nothing calls <code>session_start()</code> until the first real call to any <code>Session</code> method, so a page that never touches <code>Session</code> never gets a session cookie. <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/libraries">{{ icons.book() }}Lib\Csrf</a> uses the exact same lazy-start mechanism to run its own session-token CSRF protection — both classes can touch the same native session in the same request without conflict, since <code>session_start()</code> is only ever actually called once (PHP no-ops a second call).</p>

+    <p><code>Session::regenerate()</code> swaps the session id for a fresh one while keeping the session's data — call it on any privilege change, so a session id an attacker planted or observed before the change is worthless after it (session fixation). <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">{{ icons.lock() }}Admin authentication</a> does exactly this on login and logout.</p>
+
    <h2>Flash data</h2>

    <p>A flashed value is readable on exactly the next request, then gone — useful for post/redirect/GET flows (a "message sent" banner after a redirect) without a query-string flag like <code>?sent=1</code>:</p>
@@ -65,7 +65,9 @@ $all   = Input::post();                // the whole cleaned $_POST array</code><

    <p><strong>This is not SQL-injection protection.</strong> The cleaning <code>Input</code> does (trim + strip tags, via <code>Lib\Validate::clean()</code>, plus null-byte stripping) is defense-in-depth against HTML/script injection in output contexts — Twig already autoescapes <code>{{ '{{ }}' }}</code> output by default (see <code>novaconium/src/Renderer.php</code>), so this is a second layer, not the only one. No string transform makes arbitrary input safe to concatenate into a SQL query; the real defense is parameterized queries. <a href="/admin/docs/database">Lib\Db</a>'s <code>query()</code> method uses PDO prepared statements exclusively for exactly this reason. <code>Input</code> deliberately has no <code>sqlSafe()</code>-style method, since a method implying "cleaned = safe to interpolate into SQL" would be actively dangerous.</p>

-    <p>One documented exception: a field that needs an exact, unmodified value — a password about to be hashed, say — should read <code>$_POST</code> directly instead of going through <code>Input::post()</code>. Cleaning would silently strip characters like <code>&lt;</code>/<code>&gt;</code> before hashing, producing a hash that doesn't match what's actually typed later. See <code>novaconium/pages/admin/password-hash/index.php</code> for the one place this framework does that on purpose.</p>
+    <p>One documented exception: a field that needs an exact, unmodified value — a password about to be hashed or verified, say — should read <code>$_POST</code> directly instead of going through <code>Input::post()</code>. Cleaning would silently strip characters like <code>&lt;</code>/<code>&gt;</code> before hashing, producing a hash that doesn't match what's actually typed later (or failing a login whose password actually matches). See the password fields in <code>novaconium/pages/admin/users/index.php</code> and <code>novaconium/pages/admin/login/index.php</code> for the places this framework does that on purpose.</p>
+
+    <p>A sidecar is also where a page gets assigned to a user or group: one <code>Lib\Access</code> call at the top, returning its <code>Response</code> when access is denied — see <a href="/admin/docs/access-control">Access control</a>.</p>

    <h3>CSRF protection</h3>

@@ -140,7 +142,7 @@ $phone = Validate::isPhone($old['phone']);   // '5551234567' or false</code></pr

    <p>All three classes live under <code>novaconium/lib/</code> as framework defaults — like any other <code>Lib\</code> class, a project can override any of them by dropping a same-named file in <code>App/lib/</code> (see <a href="/admin/docs/libraries">Libraries</a>).</p>

-    <h2>Copy-paste starter: a sidecar, three ways</h2>
+    <h2>Copy-paste starter: a sidecar, four ways</h2>

    <p>Drop this in as <code>App/pages/example/index.php</code> (next to an <code>App/pages/example/index.twig</code> using the <a href="/admin/docs/seo">SEO starter template</a>) and delete whichever example you don't need:</p>

@@ -166,9 +168,26 @@ return [
 //
 // ob_start();
 // phpinfo();
-// return Response::html(ob_get_clean());{% endverbatim %}</code></pre>
+// return Response::html(ob_get_clean());

-    <p>Only one of the three <code>return</code>s in a real sidecar ever runs, obviously — pick one, or branch between them with an <code>if</code>. The IP example works with or without a sidecar-only page (no <code>index.twig</code>); the <code>phpinfo()</code> example needs <em>no</em> <code>index.twig</code> at all, since <code>Response::html()</code> bypasses Twig — see the JSON-only example above for another sidecar-only page.</p>
+// 4. Require a login — gate the page to a group, a user, or any
+// logged-in account before doing anything else. Access::require()
+// returns null when the visitor may proceed, or a ready-made Response
+// (a login redirect that comes back here afterwards, or a 404 for the
+// wrong account) for you to return as-is. Needs admin_auth_enabled and
+// at least one user — see /admin/docs/access-control for the rules and
+// /admin/docs/admin-auth for accounts and groups.
+// use Lib\Access;
+//
+// if ($denied = Access::require('group:members')) {
+//     return $denied;
+// }
+//
+// return [
+//     'message' => 'Hello, member!',
+// ];{% endverbatim %}</code></pre>
+
+    <p>Only one of the numbered <code>return</code>s in a real sidecar ever runs, obviously — pick one, or branch between them with an <code>if</code>. The IP example works with or without a sidecar-only page (no <code>index.twig</code>); the <code>phpinfo()</code> example needs <em>no</em> <code>index.twig</code> at all, since <code>Response::html()</code> bypasses Twig — see the JSON-only example above for another sidecar-only page. The login gate in example 4 isn't really an alternative to the other three — it's a first line that composes with any of them: gate first, then return whatever the page normally would. Swap the rule for <code>Access::require('user:bob')</code>, several rules (any one grants access), or no rules at all for "anyone logged in"; admins always pass.</p>

    <p><strong>Never ship <code>phpinfo()</code> to production</strong> — it dumps environment variables, file paths, loaded extensions, and configuration values that are useful to an attacker mapping your server. Delete the page after you're done with it, or at minimum gate it behind <a href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">admin authentication</a> the same way <code>/admin/*</code> already is, so it's never reachable by the public.</p>

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@

    <p>There's no PHP-based Sass compiler in this project (PHP options like <code>scssphp</code> only understand SCSS syntax) — this is a manual/CI build step, not something the app does at runtime.</p>

-    <p>Don't have Dart Sass installed? Run it via Docker instead — copy-paste this Dockerfile, which installs the same official standalone Dart Sass release used in this environment (<code>1.101.0</code>, via <code>pacman -S dart-sass</code> on Arch), not the npm-wrapped build:</p>
+    <p>Don't have Dart Sass installed? Run it via Docker instead — copy-paste this into a file named <code>Dockerfile.sass</code> (the project's own root <code>Dockerfile</code> is the app container, see <a href="/admin/docs/docker">Docker</a> — this is a separate, one-off build tool, so it gets its own filename), which installs the same official standalone Dart Sass release used in this environment (<code>1.101.0</code>, via <code>pacman -S dart-sass</code> on Arch), not the npm-wrapped build:</p>

    <pre><code>FROM debian:bookworm-slim

@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ ENTRYPOINT ["sass"]</code></pre>

    <p>Build it once, then run it the same way you'd run the local <code>sass</code> CLI (skip the leading <code>sass</code> in the command — the image's <code>ENTRYPOINT</code> already supplies it):</p>

-    <pre><code>docker build -t novaconium-sass -f Dockerfile .
+    <pre><code>docker build -t novaconium-sass -f Dockerfile.sass .
 docker run --rm -v "$(pwd):/usr/src/app" -w /usr/src/app novaconium-sass \
    --load-path=App/sass --load-path=novaconium/sass/defaults novaconium/sass/main.sass public/css/main.css</code></pre>

@@ -14,7 +14,9 @@
        <ul>
            <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/clear-cache">{{ icons.trash() }}Clear cache</a></li>
            <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs">{{ icons.book() }}Project docs</a></li>
-            <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/password-hash">{{ icons.lock() }}Generate admin password hash</a></li>
+            <li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/media">{{ icons.tag() }}Media</a></li>
+            {% if admin_auth_enabled %}<li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/users">{{ icons.users() }}Users</a></li>{% endif %}
+            {% if admin_auth_enabled %}<li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/comments">{{ icons.users() }}Comments</a></li>{% endif %}
            {% if admin_auth_enabled %}<li><a class="icon-link" href="/admin/logout">{{ icons.external_link() }}Logout</a></li>{% endif %}
        </ul>
    </article>
@@ -0,0 +1,108 @@
+<?php
+
+use App\AdminAuth;
+use App\Response;
+use Lib\Csrf;
+use Lib\Input;
+use Lib\Session;
+
+// Same two-step config load bootstrap.php/bin scripts use — this sidecar
+// isn't handed $config, so it loads its own copy to read
+// admin_auth_enabled before touching Lib\Db at all (same pattern as
+// /search reading content_index_enabled).
+$config = require __DIR__ . '/../../../config.php';
+$appConfigFile = __DIR__ . '/../../../../App/config.php';
+if (is_file($appConfigFile)) {
+    $config = array_merge($config, require $appConfigFile);
+}
+
+// Admin auth is off by default (depends on SQLite) — see
+// /admin/docs/admin-auth. When it's off there's nothing to log in to:
+// this route must 404 exactly like a page that doesn't exist, and never
+// construct a Lib\Db connection (which would otherwise create
+// data/novaconium.sqlite just because this file exists, even on a site
+// that never opted in).
+if (!$config['admin_auth_enabled']) {
+    return Response::html('404 Not Found', 404);
+}
+
+// This is the one /admin/* route bootstrap.php exempts from the admin
+// gate — it has to be reachable logged-out, or the redirect here would
+// loop. It serves registered users too, not just admins: Lib\Access (see
+// /admin/docs/access-control) sends anyone hitting a gated page here.
+
+// Where to go after a successful login. Lib\Access passes the gated
+// page's path along as ?return=, carried through the form as a hidden
+// field. Local paths only — must start with '/' but not '//' (a
+// protocol-relative URL) and contain no backslash — so a crafted login
+// link can never bounce someone to another site after they've typed
+// their password here.
+$sanitizeReturn = static function (?string $path): ?string {
+    if ($path === null || $path === '' || $path[0] !== '/') {
+        return null;
+    }
+
+    if (str_starts_with($path, '//') || str_contains($path, '\\')) {
+        return null;
+    }
+
+    return $path;
+};
+
+// Where a login (or an already-logged-in visit) lands when there's no
+// return path: admins on the admin panel, registered users on the
+// homepage (there's nothing for them under /admin — it 404s). During the
+// zero-users setup window, the admin panel — that's where the "create
+// the first user" path starts.
+$defaultTarget = static function (): string {
+    if (!AdminAuth::hasUsers()) {
+        return '/admin';
+    }
+
+    $user = AdminAuth::currentUser();
+
+    return $user !== null && $user['role'] === 'admin' ? '/admin' : '/';
+};
+
+if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
+    $return = $sanitizeReturn(Input::post('return'));
+    $failureUrl = '/admin/login' . ($return !== null ? '?return=' . rawurlencode($return) : '');
+
+    if (!Csrf::verify(Input::post('csrf_token'))) {
+        Session::flash('login_error', 'Your session expired before submitting — please try again.');
+
+        return Response::redirect($failureUrl, 303);
+    }
+
+    // Password read directly, not via Input::post() — cleaning would
+    // silently strip characters like < and > before password_verify(),
+    // failing a login the password actually matches. Same documented
+    // exception /admin/users makes when hashing — see
+    // /admin/docs/sidecars' "Form security" section.
+    $ok = AdminAuth::attempt(
+        (string) Input::post('username', ''),
+        (string) ($_POST['password'] ?? '')
+    );
+
+    if ($ok) {
+        return Response::redirect($return ?? $defaultTarget(), 303);
+    }
+
+    Session::flash('login_error', 'Wrong username or password.');
+
+    return Response::redirect($failureUrl, 303);
+}
+
+// Already logged in (or the gate is open because no users exist yet) —
+// the form is pointless, move along.
+if (AdminAuth::isLoggedIn(true)) {
+    return Response::redirect($defaultTarget(), 303);
+}
+
+return [
+    'return'    => $sanitizeReturn(Input::get('return')),
+    'error'     => Session::getFlash('login_error'),
+    'notice'    => Session::getFlash('admin_notice'),
+    'csrfField' => Csrf::fieldName(),
+    'csrfToken' => Csrf::token(),
+];
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+{% extends layout %}
+
+{% import '_layout/icons.twig' as icons %}
+
+{% block title %}Log in{% endblock %}
+
+{% block description %}Log in to your account.{% endblock %}
+
+{% block robots %}noindex, nofollow{% endblock %}
+
+{% block content %}
+    <article>
+        <h1 class="icon-heading">{{ icons.lock() }}Log in</h1>
+
+        {% if notice %}
+            <p><strong>{{ notice }}</strong></p>
+        {% endif %}
+
+        {% if error %}
+            <p><strong>{{ error }}</strong></p>
+        {% endif %}
+
+        <form method="post" action="/admin/login">
+            <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+            {% if return %}<input type="hidden" name="return" value="{{ return }}">{% endif %}
+            <p>
+                <label for="username">Username</label><br>
+                <input type="text" id="username" name="username" autocomplete="username" required>
+            </p>
+            <p>
+                <label for="password">Password</label><br>
+                <input type="password" id="password" name="password" autocomplete="current-password" required>
+            </p>
+            <button type="submit">Log in</button>
+        </form>
+    </article>
+{% endblock %}
@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+<?php
+
+use App\AdminAuth;
+use App\Response;
+use Lib\Csrf;
+use Lib\Input;
+use Lib\Session;
+
+// Same two-step config load as /admin/login — see that sidecar. 404 when
+// admin auth is off so this route has zero footprint (no session cookie,
+// no Lib\Db touch) on a site that never opted in.
+$config = require __DIR__ . '/../../../config.php';
+$appConfigFile = __DIR__ . '/../../../../App/config.php';
+if (is_file($appConfigFile)) {
+    $config = array_merge($config, require $appConfigFile);
+}
+
+if (!$config['admin_auth_enabled']) {
+    return Response::html('404 Not Found', 404);
+}
+
+// A real page now, replacing the hardcoded pre-router special case
+// bootstrap.php needed back when logout meant tricking the browser into
+// dropping cached Basic Auth credentials. Unlike then, this is a real
+// server-side logout: the session's user id is gone afterwards, whatever
+// the browser resends.
+//
+// POST-only, with a GET confirm form, same shape as /admin/clear-cache —
+// NOT a logout-on-GET link. Sidecars must be side-effect-free on GET
+// (ordinary HTTP hygiene, and the content-index crawl relies on it: it
+// invokes every page's sidecar the way a real GET would, so a
+// logout-on-GET here would silently end the crawling admin's own session
+// the first time a lazy reindex rendered this page).
+if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
+    if (!Csrf::verify(Input::post('csrf_token'))) {
+        return Response::redirect('/admin/logout?error=security', 303);
+    }
+
+    AdminAuth::logout();
+    Session::flash('admin_notice', 'You have been logged out.');
+
+    return Response::redirect('/admin/login', 303);
+}
+
+return [
+    'securityError' => Input::get('error') === 'security',
+    'csrfField'     => Csrf::fieldName(),
+    'csrfToken'     => Csrf::token(),
+];
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+{% extends layout %}
+
+{% import '_layout/icons.twig' as icons %}
+
+{% block title %}Log out{% endblock %}
+
+{% block description %}Log out of the admin area.{% endblock %}
+
+{% block robots %}noindex, nofollow{% endblock %}
+
+{% block content %}
+    <article>
+        <h1 class="icon-heading">{{ icons.external_link() }}Log out</h1>
+        <p>Ends your admin session on the server — you'll need to log in again at <a href="/admin/login">/admin/login</a> to get back in.</p>
+        {% if securityError %}
+            <p><strong>Your session expired before submitting — please try again.</strong></p>
+        {% endif %}
+        <form method="post">
+            <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+            <button type="submit">Log out</button>
+        </form>
+    </article>
+{% endblock %}
@@ -0,0 +1,148 @@
+<?php
+
+use App\Response;
+use Lib\Csrf;
+use Lib\Input;
+use Lib\Session;
+
+// Same two-step config load as other /admin/* sidecars that read config
+// directly (e.g. admin/users) — no *_enabled flag to check here, this
+// feature has no SQLite dependency, and bootstrap.php's admin gate already
+// covers /admin/media like every other /admin/* route.
+$config = require __DIR__ . '/../../../config.php';
+$appConfigFile = __DIR__ . '/../../../../App/config.php';
+if (is_file($appConfigFile)) {
+    $config = array_merge($config, require $appConfigFile);
+}
+
+$uploadDir = __DIR__ . '/../../../../public/uploads';
+$allowedExtensions = $config['media_upload_extensions'];
+$maxBytes = $config['media_upload_max_bytes'];
+
+// Filenames are user input (from the browser's original filename or a
+// delete request) and end up in filesystem calls, so every path built from
+// one is basename()'d first (strips directory components/`..`) and then
+// re-verified with realpath() to land inside $uploadDir before any
+// read/write/delete touches disk.
+$safeName = static function (string $name): string {
+    $name = basename($name);
+    $name = preg_replace('/[^A-Za-z0-9._-]/', '_', $name) ?? '';
+    $name = ltrim($name, '.');
+
+    return $name === '' ? 'file' : $name;
+};
+
+$resolveInUploadDir = static function (string $filename) use ($uploadDir): string|false {
+    $path = $uploadDir . '/' . $filename;
+    $real = realpath($path);
+    $realDir = realpath($uploadDir);
+
+    if ($real === false || $realDir === false || !str_starts_with($real, $realDir . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR)) {
+        return false;
+    }
+
+    return $real;
+};
+
+if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
+    if (!Csrf::verify(Input::post('csrf_token'))) {
+        Session::flash('media_error', 'Your session expired before submitting — please try again.');
+
+        return Response::redirect('/admin/media', 303);
+    }
+
+    $action = Input::post('action', '');
+
+    if ($action === 'upload') {
+        $file = $_FILES['file'] ?? null;
+
+        if ($file === null || !is_uploaded_file($file['tmp_name'] ?? '')) {
+            Session::flash('media_error', 'Choose a file to upload.');
+        } elseif ($file['error'] === UPLOAD_ERR_INI_SIZE || $file['error'] === UPLOAD_ERR_FORM_SIZE) {
+            Session::flash('media_error', 'That file is too large.');
+        } elseif ($file['error'] !== UPLOAD_ERR_OK) {
+            Session::flash('media_error', 'Upload failed — please try again.');
+        } elseif ($file['size'] > $maxBytes) {
+            Session::flash('media_error', sprintf('That file is too large — %s max.', number_format($maxBytes / 1024 / 1024, 1) . ' MB'));
+        } else {
+            $extension = strtolower(pathinfo((string) $file['name'], PATHINFO_EXTENSION));
+
+            if (!in_array($extension, $allowedExtensions, true)) {
+                Session::flash('media_error', sprintf("That file type isn\u{2019}t allowed — allowed types: %s.", implode(', ', $allowedExtensions)));
+            } else {
+                $name = $safeName((string) $file['name']);
+
+                // Avoid clobbering an existing file of the same name —
+                // append -1, -2, etc. before the extension until free.
+                $base = pathinfo($name, PATHINFO_FILENAME);
+                $ext = pathinfo($name, PATHINFO_EXTENSION);
+                $candidate = $name;
+                $i = 1;
+
+                while (is_file($uploadDir . '/' . $candidate)) {
+                    $candidate = $ext !== '' ? "{$base}-{$i}.{$ext}" : "{$base}-{$i}";
+                    $i++;
+                }
+
+                if (!is_dir($uploadDir)) {
+                    mkdir($uploadDir, 0755, true);
+                }
+
+                if (move_uploaded_file($file['tmp_name'], $uploadDir . '/' . $candidate)) {
+                    Session::flash('media_notice', "Uploaded \u{201C}{$candidate}\u{201D}.");
+                } else {
+                    Session::flash('media_error', 'Upload failed — please try again.');
+                }
+            }
+        }
+    } elseif ($action === 'delete') {
+        $filename = $safeName((string) Input::post('filename', ''));
+        $real = $resolveInUploadDir($filename);
+
+        if ($real === false || !is_file($real)) {
+            Session::flash('media_error', 'No such file.');
+        } else {
+            unlink($real);
+            Session::flash('media_notice', "Deleted \u{201C}{$filename}\u{201D}.");
+        }
+    }
+
+    return Response::redirect('/admin/media', 303);
+}
+
+$files = [];
+
+if (is_dir($uploadDir)) {
+    foreach (scandir($uploadDir) as $entry) {
+        // .gitkeep keeps the otherwise-gitignored directory tracked in git
+        // (see .gitignore's /public/uploads/* rule) — not a real upload.
+        if ($entry === '.' || $entry === '..' || $entry === '.gitkeep' || str_starts_with($entry, '.')) {
+            continue;
+        }
+
+        $path = $uploadDir . '/' . $entry;
+
+        if (!is_file($path)) {
+            continue;
+        }
+
+        $files[] = [
+            'name'     => $entry,
+            'size'     => filesize($path),
+            'modified' => gmdate('Y-m-d H:i', filemtime($path)),
+            'url'      => '/uploads/' . rawurlencode($entry),
+        ];
+    }
+
+    usort($files, static fn (array $a, array $b): int => strcmp($a['name'], $b['name']));
+}
+
+return [
+    'files'             => $files,
+    'allowedExtensions' => $allowedExtensions,
+    'maxBytes'          => $maxBytes,
+    'notice'            => Session::getFlash('media_notice'),
+    'error'             => Session::getFlash('media_error'),
+    'csrfField'         => Csrf::fieldName(),
+    'csrfToken'         => Csrf::token(),
+];
@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+{% extends layout %}
+
+{% import '_layout/icons.twig' as icons %}
+
+{% block title %}Media{% endblock %}
+
+{% block description %}Upload, browse, and delete files under public/uploads/.{% endblock %}
+
+{% block robots %}noindex, nofollow{% endblock %}
+
+{% block content %}
+    <article>
+        <h1 class="icon-heading">{{ icons.book() }}Media</h1>
+
+        <p>Files uploaded here live under <code>public/uploads/</code> and are served directly at the URL shown below each file — reference one from a sidecar or Twig template the same way you'd link any other static asset. Allowed types: {% for ext in allowedExtensions %}<code>.{{ ext }}</code>{% if not loop.last %}, {% endif %}{% endfor %}. Max size: {{ (maxBytes / 1024 / 1024)|round(1, 'floor') }} MB.</p>
+
+        {% if notice %}
+            <p><strong>{{ notice }}</strong></p>
+        {% endif %}
+
+        {% if error %}
+            <p><strong>{{ error }}</strong></p>
+        {% endif %}
+
+        <h2>Upload a file</h2>
+
+        <form method="post" action="/admin/media" enctype="multipart/form-data">
+            <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+            <input type="hidden" name="action" value="upload">
+            <p>
+                <label for="file">File</label><br>
+                <input type="file" id="file" name="file" required>
+            </p>
+            <button type="submit">Upload</button>
+        </form>
+
+        <h2>Files</h2>
+
+        {% if files is empty %}
+            <p>No files uploaded yet.</p>
+        {% else %}
+            <table>
+                <thead>
+                    <tr>
+                        <th>File</th>
+                        <th>Size</th>
+                        <th>Modified</th>
+                        <th>Actions</th>
+                    </tr>
+                </thead>
+                <tbody>
+                    {% for file in files %}
+                        <tr>
+                            <td><a href="{{ file.url }}">{{ file.name }}</a></td>
+                            <td>{{ (file.size / 1024)|round(1, 'floor') }} KB</td>
+                            <td>{{ file.modified }}</td>
+                            <td>
+                                <form method="post" action="/admin/media">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="filename" value="{{ file.name }}">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="action" value="delete">
+                                    <button type="submit">Delete</button>
+                                </form>
+                            </td>
+                        </tr>
+                    {% endfor %}
+                </tbody>
+            </table>
+        {% endif %}
+    </article>
+{% endblock %}
@@ -1,38 +0,0 @@
-<?php
-
-use App\Response;
-use Lib\Csrf;
-use Lib\Input;
-
-$hash = null;
-$error = null;
-
-if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
-    if (!Csrf::verify(Input::post('csrf_token'))) {
-        return Response::redirect('/admin/password-hash?error=security');
-    }
-
-    // Read directly, not via Input::post() — that cleaning would silently
-    // strip characters like < and > before hashing, producing a hash that
-    // doesn't match what's actually typed later at the Basic Auth prompt
-    // (which does zero sanitization).
-    $password = $_POST['password'] ?? '';
-
-    if ($password === '') {
-        $error = 'Enter a password to hash.';
-    } elseif (strlen($password) < 8) {
-        $error = 'Use at least 8 characters.';
-    } else {
-        // Computed once per request and never stored/logged — the page
-        // that renders this is the only place it's ever seen.
-        $hash = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT);
-    }
-}
-
-return [
-    'hash'          => $hash,
-    'error'         => $error,
-    'securityError' => Input::get('error') === 'security',
-    'csrfField'     => Csrf::fieldName(),
-    'csrfToken'     => Csrf::token(),
-];
@@ -1,42 +0,0 @@
-{% extends layout %}
-
-{% import '_layout/icons.twig' as icons %}
-
-{% block title %}Generate admin password hash{% endblock %}
-{% block description %}Generate a password_hash() value for admin_password_hash without using the CLI.{% endblock %}
-{% block robots %}noindex, nofollow{% endblock %}
-
-{% block content %}
-    <article>
-        <h1 class="icon-heading">{{ icons.lock() }}Generate admin password hash</h1>
-
-        <p>A browser-based alternative to <code>php -r "echo password_hash('yourpassword', PASSWORD_DEFAULT);"</code>. Enter a password, get back the hash <code>App/config.php</code> expects for <code>admin_password_hash</code> — see <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/admin-auth">{{ icons.book() }}Admin authentication</a>. Nothing typed here is stored, logged, or sent anywhere except computed once for this response.</p>
-
-        <form method="post" action="/admin/password-hash">
-            <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
-            <p>
-                <label for="password">Password</label><br>
-                <input type="password" id="password" name="password" autocomplete="new-password">
-            </p>
-            <button type="submit">Generate hash</button>
-        </form>
-
-        {% if securityError %}
-            <p><strong>Your session expired before submitting — please try again.</strong></p>
-        {% endif %}
-
-        {% if error %}
-            <p><strong>{{ error }}</strong></p>
-        {% endif %}
-
-        {% if hash %}
-            <p>Add this to <code>App/config.php</code>:</p>
-            <pre><code>&lt;?php
-// App/config.php
-return [
-    'admin_username'      =&gt; 'admin',
-    'admin_password_hash' =&gt; '{{ hash }}',
-];</code></pre>
-        {% endif %}
-    </article>
-{% endblock %}
@@ -0,0 +1,266 @@
+<?php
+
+use App\AdminAuth;
+use App\Response;
+use Lib\Csrf;
+use Lib\Db;
+use Lib\Input;
+use Lib\Mailer;
+use Lib\Session;
+use Lib\Validate;
+
+// Same two-step config load as /admin/login — see that sidecar. 404 when
+// admin auth is off, before anything here touches Lib\Db, so the feature
+// has zero footprint on a site that never opted in.
+$config = require __DIR__ . '/../../../config.php';
+$appConfigFile = __DIR__ . '/../../../../App/config.php';
+if (is_file($appConfigFile)) {
+    $config = array_merge($config, require $appConfigFile);
+}
+
+if (!$config['admin_auth_enabled']) {
+    return Response::html('404 Not Found', 404);
+}
+
+// No auth check here — bootstrap.php's admin gate already covers this
+// route like every other /admin/* page (admins only; registered users get
+// a 404 there). While zero users exist that gate is deliberately open,
+// which is exactly what makes creating the *first* user here possible.
+
+// Disabling or demoting the last active admin would lock everyone out of
+// /admin/* permanently (the zero-users setup window doesn't reopen — the
+// table isn't empty), recoverable only via the CLI or editing the
+// database by hand. Both actions below refuse when this returns 1 and
+// the target is an active admin.
+$activeAdminCount = static fn (): int => (int) Db::query(
+    "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM users WHERE is_disabled = 0 AND role = 'admin'"
+)->fetchColumn();
+
+// Issues a fresh verification token (bin2hex(random_bytes(32)), same
+// pattern as Lib\Csrf::token()) for the given user id, emails the link via
+// Lib\Mailer::sendMail() (log-file by default, MailJet if configured — see
+// /admin/docs/admin-auth), and returns the token for callers that don't
+// need it. Used by both the create action (new non-bootstrap users) and
+// the resend_verification/email actions below.
+$issueVerification = static function (int $id, string $email): void {
+    $token = bin2hex(random_bytes(32));
+    $expiresAt = gmdate('Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z', time() + 86400);
+
+    Db::query(
+        'UPDATE users SET verified_at = NULL, verification_token = ?, verification_token_expires_at = ? WHERE id = ?',
+        [$token, $expiresAt, $id]
+    );
+
+    $scheme = (!empty($_SERVER['HTTPS']) && $_SERVER['HTTPS'] !== 'off') ? 'https' : 'http';
+    $host = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] ?? 'localhost';
+    $verifyUrl = "{$scheme}://{$host}/verify-email?token={$token}";
+
+    (new Mailer())->sendMail(
+        $email,
+        'Verify your account',
+        "Confirm your email address to activate your account:\n\n{$verifyUrl}\n\nThis link expires in 24 hours."
+    );
+};
+
+if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
+    if (!Csrf::verify(Input::post('csrf_token'))) {
+        Session::flash('users_error', 'Your session expired before submitting — please try again.');
+
+        return Response::redirect('/admin/users', 303);
+    }
+
+    $action = Input::post('action', '');
+
+    if ($action === 'create') {
+        $username = trim((string) Input::post('username', ''));
+        // Validate::isEmail() returns the normalized (trimmed, lowercased)
+        // address, or false — stored normalized so the future
+        // email-verification flow (see novaconium/ISSUES.md) can match
+        // addresses case-insensitively for free.
+        $email = Validate::isEmail((string) Input::post('email', ''));
+        $group = trim((string) Input::post('group', ''));
+        // Passwords read directly, not via Input::post() — cleaning would
+        // silently strip characters like < and > before hashing, producing
+        // a hash that doesn't match what's actually typed at /admin/login
+        // later. See /admin/docs/sidecars' "Form security" section.
+        $password = (string) ($_POST['password'] ?? '');
+
+        $exists = $username !== ''
+            && (bool) Db::query('SELECT EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM users WHERE username = ?)', [$username])->fetchColumn();
+        $emailExists = $email !== false
+            && (bool) Db::query('SELECT EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM users WHERE email = ?)', [$email])->fetchColumn();
+
+        if ($username === '' || strlen($username) > 64) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'Enter a username (64 characters max).');
+        } elseif ($email === false) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'Enter a valid email address.');
+        } elseif ($emailExists) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'That email address is already in use.');
+        } elseif (strlen($group) > 64) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'Group names are 64 characters max.');
+        } elseif ($exists) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'That username is already taken.');
+        } elseif (strlen($password) < 8) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'Use a password of at least 8 characters.');
+        } else {
+            // The first user ever created is the admin; everyone after is
+            // a registered user (optionally in a group) — Lib\Access rules
+            // decide what content they can see, and /admin/* 404s for
+            // them. See /admin/docs/admin-auth and
+            // /admin/docs/access-control.
+            $wasFirstUser = !AdminAuth::hasUsers();
+            $role = $wasFirstUser ? 'admin' : 'registered';
+            $now = gmdate('Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z');
+
+            // The first user is auto-verified — there's no other admin to
+            // have vouched for them, and the very next line logs them in
+            // immediately, which a null verified_at would otherwise block
+            // (see AdminAuth::attempt() and /admin/docs/admin-auth). Every
+            // subsequent account starts unverified and gets a verification
+            // email instead, via $issueVerification below.
+            Db::query(
+                'INSERT INTO users (username, email, password_hash, role, user_group, is_disabled, created_at, verified_at) VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, 0, ?, ?)',
+                [$username, $email, password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT), $role, $group, $now, $wasFirstUser ? $now : null]
+            );
+
+            // Creating the first user is what closes the open setup gate —
+            // log its creator in as it, or their very next request would
+            // bounce them to the login form they were just typing into.
+            if ($wasFirstUser) {
+                AdminAuth::attempt($username, $password);
+                Session::flash('users_notice', "User \u{201C}{$username}\u{201D} created.");
+            } else {
+                $id = (int) Db::query('SELECT id FROM users WHERE username = ?', [$username])->fetchColumn();
+                $issueVerification($id, $email);
+                Session::flash('users_notice', "User \u{201C}{$username}\u{201D} created — a verification email was sent to {$email}; they can't log in until it's confirmed.");
+            }
+        }
+    } elseif ($action === 'disable' || $action === 'enable') {
+        $id = (int) Input::post('id', '0');
+        $target = Db::query('SELECT id, username, role, is_disabled FROM users WHERE id = ?', [$id])->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
+
+        if ($target === false) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'No such user.');
+        } elseif ($action === 'disable' && (int) $target['is_disabled'] === 0 && $target['role'] === 'admin' && $activeAdminCount() <= 1) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'Cannot disable the last active admin — that would lock everyone out of /admin.');
+        } else {
+            Db::query('UPDATE users SET is_disabled = ? WHERE id = ?', [$action === 'disable' ? 1 : 0, $id]);
+            Session::flash('users_notice', sprintf("User \u{201C}%s\u{201D} %sd.", $target['username'], $action));
+        }
+    } elseif ($action === 'role') {
+        $id = (int) Input::post('id', '0');
+        $role = Input::post('role', '');
+        $target = Db::query('SELECT id, username, role, is_disabled FROM users WHERE id = ?', [$id])->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
+
+        if ($target === false) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'No such user.');
+        } elseif (!in_array($role, ['admin', 'registered'], true)) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'No such role.');
+        } elseif ($role === 'registered' && $target['role'] === 'admin' && (int) $target['is_disabled'] === 0 && $activeAdminCount() <= 1) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'Cannot demote the last active admin — that would lock everyone out of /admin.');
+        } else {
+            Db::query('UPDATE users SET role = ? WHERE id = ?', [$role, $id]);
+            Session::flash('users_notice', "User \u{201C}{$target['username']}\u{201D} is now {$role}.");
+        }
+    } elseif ($action === 'delete') {
+        $id = (int) Input::post('id', '0');
+        $target = Db::query('SELECT id, username, role, is_disabled FROM users WHERE id = ?', [$id])->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
+
+        if ($target === false) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'No such user.');
+        } elseif ((int) $target['is_disabled'] === 0 && $target['role'] === 'admin' && $activeAdminCount() <= 1) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'Cannot delete the last active admin — that would lock everyone out of /admin.');
+        } else {
+            // A hard delete, not a soft one — is_disabled already covers
+            // "keep the account but shut it out", so delete is for
+            // accounts that shouldn't exist at all. Any live session dies
+            // on its next request (currentUser() re-checks the row).
+            //
+            // Remove the user's comments first: comments.user_id has a
+            // NOT NULL foreign key to users(id) (0003_create_comments.sql)
+            // and Lib\Db runs PRAGMA foreign_keys = ON, so deleting a user
+            // who has ever commented would otherwise raise a FOREIGN KEY
+            // constraint violation and 500. Fresh installs also get
+            // ON DELETE CASCADE on the FK, but this keeps already-migrated
+            // databases (whose FK predates that) working too.
+            Db::query('DELETE FROM comments WHERE user_id = ?', [$id]);
+            Db::query('DELETE FROM users WHERE id = ?', [$id]);
+            Session::flash('users_notice', "User \u{201C}{$target['username']}\u{201D} deleted.");
+        }
+    } elseif ($action === 'email') {
+        $id = (int) Input::post('id', '0');
+        $email = Validate::isEmail((string) Input::post('email', ''));
+        $target = Db::query('SELECT id, username FROM users WHERE id = ?', [$id])->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
+        $emailExists = $email !== false
+            && (bool) Db::query('SELECT EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM users WHERE email = ? AND id != ?)', [$email, $id])->fetchColumn();
+
+        if ($target === false) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'No such user.');
+        } elseif ($email === false) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'Enter a valid email address.');
+        } elseif ($emailExists) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'That email address is already in use.');
+        } else {
+            // A changed address hasn't been proven owned yet — reset
+            // verification and send a fresh link to the *new* address,
+            // rather than silently keeping the old address's verified
+            // status attached to an unconfirmed one. $issueVerification
+            // also sets verified_at back to NULL, so the account can't log
+            // in again until this new address is confirmed.
+            Db::query('UPDATE users SET email = ? WHERE id = ?', [$email, $id]);
+            $issueVerification($id, $email);
+            Session::flash('users_notice', "Email changed for \u{201C}{$target['username']}\u{201D} — a verification email was sent to {$email}; they can't log in again until it's confirmed.");
+        }
+    } elseif ($action === 'resend_verification') {
+        $id = (int) Input::post('id', '0');
+        $target = Db::query('SELECT id, username, email, verified_at FROM users WHERE id = ?', [$id])->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
+
+        if ($target === false) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'No such user.');
+        } elseif ($target['verified_at'] !== null) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', "\u{201C}{$target['username']}\u{201D} is already verified.");
+        } else {
+            $issueVerification($id, $target['email']);
+            Session::flash('users_notice', "Verification email resent to \u{201C}{$target['username']}\u{201D}.");
+        }
+    } elseif ($action === 'group') {
+        $id = (int) Input::post('id', '0');
+        $group = trim((string) Input::post('group', ''));
+        $target = Db::query('SELECT id, username FROM users WHERE id = ?', [$id])->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
+
+        if ($target === false) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'No such user.');
+        } elseif (strlen($group) > 64) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'Group names are 64 characters max.');
+        } else {
+            Db::query('UPDATE users SET user_group = ? WHERE id = ?', [$group, $id]);
+            Session::flash('users_notice', $group === ''
+                ? "User \u{201C}{$target['username']}\u{201D} removed from their group."
+                : "User \u{201C}{$target['username']}\u{201D} assigned to group \u{201C}{$group}\u{201D}.");
+        }
+    } elseif ($action === 'password') {
+        $id = (int) Input::post('id', '0');
+        $password = (string) ($_POST['password'] ?? '');
+        $target = Db::query('SELECT id, username FROM users WHERE id = ?', [$id])->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
+
+        if ($target === false) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'No such user.');
+        } elseif (strlen($password) < 8) {
+            Session::flash('users_error', 'Use a password of at least 8 characters.');
+        } else {
+            Db::query('UPDATE users SET password_hash = ? WHERE id = ?', [password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT), $id]);
+            Session::flash('users_notice', "Password changed for \u{201C}{$target['username']}\u{201D}.");
+        }
+    }
+
+    return Response::redirect('/admin/users', 303);
+}
+
+return [
+    'users'         => Db::query('SELECT id, username, email, role, user_group, is_disabled, created_at, verified_at FROM users ORDER BY username')->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC),
+    'currentUserId' => AdminAuth::currentUser()['id'] ?? null,
+    'notice'        => Session::getFlash('users_notice'),
+    'error'         => Session::getFlash('users_error'),
+    'csrfField'     => Csrf::fieldName(),
+    'csrfToken'     => Csrf::token(),
+];
@@ -0,0 +1,155 @@
+{% extends layout %}
+
+{% import '_layout/icons.twig' as icons %}
+
+{% block title %}Users{% endblock %}
+
+{% block description %}Create, disable, and manage user accounts, roles, and groups.{% endblock %}
+
+{% block robots %}noindex, nofollow{% endblock %}
+
+{% block content %}
+    <article>
+        <h1 class="icon-heading">{{ icons.users() }}Users</h1>
+
+        <p>Accounts that can log in at <a href="/admin/login">/admin/login</a>. The first user created is the <strong>admin</strong>; everyone after is <strong>registered</strong> — able to log in and see whatever pages <code>Lib\Access</code> assigns to their account or group (see <a class="icon-link" href="/admin/docs/access-control">{{ icons.lock() }}Access control</a>), but not the admin area. A disabled user can't log in, and any session they already had is locked out on its next request. Every user after the first must also verify their email before they can log in at all — they're sent a verification link on creation (or resend it below), and changing an account's email requires re-verifying the new address.</p>
+
+        {% if notice %}
+            <p><strong>{{ notice }}</strong></p>
+        {% endif %}
+
+        {% if error %}
+            <p><strong>{{ error }}</strong></p>
+        {% endif %}
+
+        {% if users is empty %}
+            <p><strong>No users exist yet, so the admin area is open to anyone who can reach it.</strong> Create the first user below to close the gate — it becomes the admin account, and you'll be logged in as it automatically.</p>
+        {% else %}
+            <table>
+                <thead>
+                    <tr>
+                        <th>Username</th>
+                        <th>Email</th>
+                        <th>Role</th>
+                        <th>Group</th>
+                        <th>Created</th>
+                        <th>Status</th>
+                        <th>Verified</th>
+                        <th>Actions</th>
+                    </tr>
+                </thead>
+                <tbody>
+                    {% for user in users %}
+                        <tr>
+                            <td>{{ user.username }}{% if user.id == currentUserId %} <em>(you)</em>{% endif %}</td>
+                            <td>{{ user.email }}</td>
+                            <td>{{ user.role == 'admin' ? 'Admin' : 'Registered' }}</td>
+                            <td>{{ user.user_group ?: '—' }}</td>
+                            <td>{{ user.created_at }}</td>
+                            <td>{{ user.is_disabled ? 'Disabled' : 'Active' }}</td>
+                            <td>{{ user.verified_at ? 'Verified' : 'Unverified' }}</td>
+                            <td>
+                                <form method="post" action="/admin/users">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="id" value="{{ user.id }}">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="action" value="{{ user.is_disabled ? 'enable' : 'disable' }}">
+                                    <button type="submit">{{ user.is_disabled ? 'Enable' : 'Disable' }}</button>
+                                </form>
+                                {% if not user.verified_at %}
+                                    <form method="post" action="/admin/users">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="id" value="{{ user.id }}">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="action" value="resend_verification">
+                                        <button type="submit">Resend verification</button>
+                                    </form>
+                                {% endif %}
+                                <form method="post" action="/admin/users">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="id" value="{{ user.id }}">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="action" value="role">
+                                    <input type="hidden" name="role" value="{{ user.role == 'admin' ? 'registered' : 'admin' }}">
+                                    <button type="submit">{{ user.role == 'admin' ? 'Make registered' : 'Make admin' }}</button>
+                                </form>
+                                <details>
+                                    <summary>Change email</summary>
+                                    <form method="post" action="/admin/users">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="id" value="{{ user.id }}">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="action" value="email">
+                                        <p>
+                                            <label for="email-{{ user.id }}">New email address</label><br>
+                                            <input type="email" id="email-{{ user.id }}" name="email" value="{{ user.email }}" required>
+                                        </p>
+                                        <button type="submit">Change email</button>
+                                    </form>
+                                </details>
+                                <details>
+                                    <summary>Change group</summary>
+                                    <form method="post" action="/admin/users">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="id" value="{{ user.id }}">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="action" value="group">
+                                        <p>
+                                            <label for="group-{{ user.id }}">Group (empty for none)</label><br>
+                                            <input type="text" id="group-{{ user.id }}" name="group" value="{{ user.user_group }}">
+                                        </p>
+                                        <button type="submit">Change group</button>
+                                    </form>
+                                </details>
+                                <details>
+                                    <summary>Change password</summary>
+                                    <form method="post" action="/admin/users">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="id" value="{{ user.id }}">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="action" value="password">
+                                        <p>
+                                            <label for="password-{{ user.id }}">New password</label><br>
+                                            <input type="password" id="password-{{ user.id }}" name="password" autocomplete="new-password" required>
+                                        </p>
+                                        <button type="submit">Change password</button>
+                                    </form>
+                                </details>
+                                <details>
+                                    <summary>Delete</summary>
+                                    <form method="post" action="/admin/users">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="id" value="{{ user.id }}">
+                                        <input type="hidden" name="action" value="delete">
+                                        <p>Permanently removes <strong>{{ user.username }}</strong> — there's no undo. To shut an account out but keep it, use Disable instead.</p>
+                                        <button type="submit">Delete {{ user.username }}</button>
+                                    </form>
+                                </details>
+                            </td>
+                        </tr>
+                    {% endfor %}
+                </tbody>
+            </table>
+        {% endif %}
+
+        <h2>Create a user</h2>
+
+        <form method="post" action="/admin/users">
+            <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+            <input type="hidden" name="action" value="create">
+            <p>
+                <label for="username">Username</label><br>
+                <input type="text" id="username" name="username" autocomplete="off" required>
+            </p>
+            <p>
+                <label for="email">Email address</label><br>
+                <input type="email" id="email" name="email" autocomplete="off" required>
+            </p>
+            <p>
+                <label for="password">Password (at least 8 characters)</label><br>
+                <input type="password" id="password" name="password" autocomplete="new-password" required>
+            </p>
+            {% if users is not empty %}
+                <p>
+                    <label for="group">Group (optional — e.g. <code>members</code>, matched by <code>Access::require('group:members')</code>)</label><br>
+                    <input type="text" id="group" name="group" autocomplete="off">
+                </p>
+            {% endif %}
+            <button type="submit">Create user</button>
+        </form>
+    </article>
+{% endblock %}
@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+<?php
+
+use App\Response;
+use Lib\Csrf;
+use Lib\Db;
+use Lib\Input;
+use Lib\Session;
+
+// Same two-step config load as /admin/login — this sidecar isn't handed
+// $config, so it loads its own copy to read admin_auth_enabled before
+// touching Lib\Db at all.
+$config = require __DIR__ . '/../../config.php';
+$appConfigFile = __DIR__ . '/../../../App/config.php';
+if (is_file($appConfigFile)) {
+    $config = array_merge($config, require $appConfigFile);
+}
+
+// Nothing to verify against without the users table — 404 exactly like a
+// route that doesn't exist, same zero-footprint posture as
+// login/logout/users, and never touch Lib\Db on a site that never opted
+// in.
+if (!$config['admin_auth_enabled']) {
+    return Response::html('404 Not Found', 404);
+}
+
+$findByToken = static function (string $token): array|false {
+    if ($token === '') {
+        return false;
+    }
+
+    $row = Db::query(
+        'SELECT id, username, verification_token_expires_at FROM users WHERE verification_token = ?',
+        [$token]
+    )->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
+
+    if ($row === false || $row['verification_token_expires_at'] < gmdate('Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z')) {
+        return false;
+    }
+
+    return $row;
+};
+
+// GET renders an inert confirm page, POST does the mutation — same
+// shape as /admin/logout, and for the same two reasons: the content-index
+// crawl (ContentIndexer::reindex()) hits every routable page as a forced
+// GET, and email-security scanners prefetch links before a human clicks —
+// either one would burn the token on a GET-mutates link. A missing,
+// wrong, or expired token never touches the database on GET or POST; it
+// just renders the "invalid or expired" state.
+if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {
+    $token = (string) Input::post('token', '');
+
+    if (!Csrf::verify(Input::post('csrf_token'))) {
+        return Response::redirect('/verify-email?error=security', 303);
+    }
+
+    $user = $findByToken($token);
+
+    if ($user === false) {
+        return [
+            'valid'         => false,
+            'token'         => '',
+            'securityError' => false,
+            'csrfField'     => Csrf::fieldName(),
+            'csrfToken'     => Csrf::token(),
+        ];
+    }
+
+    Db::query(
+        'UPDATE users SET verified_at = ?, verification_token = NULL, verification_token_expires_at = NULL WHERE id = ?',
+        [gmdate('Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z'), $user['id']]
+    );
+
+    Session::flash('admin_notice', "Email verified for \u{201C}{$user['username']}\u{201D} — you can log in now.");
+
+    return Response::redirect('/admin/login', 303);
+}
+
+$token = (string) Input::get('token', '');
+$user = $findByToken($token);
+
+return [
+    'valid'         => $user !== false,
+    'token'         => $token,
+    'securityError' => Input::get('error') === 'security',
+    'csrfField'     => Csrf::fieldName(),
+    'csrfToken'     => Csrf::token(),
+];
@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+{% extends layout %}
+
+{% import '_layout/icons.twig' as icons %}
+
+{% block title %}Verify email{% endblock %}
+
+{% block description %}Confirm a new account's email address.{% endblock %}
+
+{% block robots %}noindex, nofollow{% endblock %}
+
+{% block content %}
+    <article>
+        <h1 class="icon-heading">{{ icons.email() }}Verify email</h1>
+
+        {% if securityError %}
+            <p><strong>Your session expired before submitting — please try again.</strong></p>
+        {% endif %}
+
+        {% if valid %}
+            <p>Click below to confirm this address and finish activating the account.</p>
+            <form method="post">
+                <input type="hidden" name="{{ csrfField }}" value="{{ csrfToken }}">
+                <input type="hidden" name="token" value="{{ token }}">
+                <button type="submit">Verify email</button>
+            </form>
+        {% else %}
+            <p><strong>This link is invalid or has expired.</strong> Ask an admin to resend the verification email from <a href="/admin/users">/admin/users</a>.</p>
+        {% endif %}
+    </article>
+{% endblock %}
@@ -386,7 +386,7 @@ button
  opacity: 0
  animation: fade-in-up 0.5s ease-out forwards

-  @for $i from 1 through 6
+  @for $i from 1 through 12
    &:nth-child(#{$i})
      animation-delay: #{0.3 + $i * 0.06}s

@@ -2,76 +2,202 @@

 namespace App;

+use Lib\Db;
+use Lib\Session;
+use PDO;
+
 /**
- * Reusable HTTP Basic Auth gate for /admin/*. A single check, called once
- * from bootstrap.php for any route under admin/, so protecting a new admin
- * page (clear-cache today, anything future) needs no per-page wiring.
+ * Session-based login backed by the `users` table
+ * (novaconium/migrations/0002_create_users.sql) on Lib\Db's default
+ * connection. This replaced the single-user HTTP Basic Auth stopgap that
+ * originally shipped under this same class name — same call sites
+ * (bootstrap.php's admin gate and draft gate), new mechanism, per the
+ * "replace it, don't layer on top of it" plan in novaconium/ISSUES.md.
 *
- * Deliberately not a full user system — no sessions, no user table, no
- * password reset. It's a stopgap until proper multi-user admin login
- * (see novaconium/ISSUES.md) lands; that feature will replace this, not extend it.
+ * Two roles: 'admin' (full /admin/* access, sees drafts, passes every
+ * Lib\Access rule) and 'registered' (can log in, and sees whatever
+ * content Lib\Access grants their account or their group — see
+ * /admin/docs/access-control — but /admin/* 404s for them). The first
+ * user ever created is the admin; users created after that are
+ * registered, each optionally assigned one group (users.user_group, a
+ * plain text label — no groups table).
 *
- * Note: Lib\Csrf (unrelated to login state here) does start a native PHP
- * session when a form calls it — so "no sessions" above is specifically
- * about this class's own login check, not a framework-wide guarantee.
+ * Gated by config['admin_auth_enabled'] (default false — same off-by-
+ * default posture as the content index, and for the same reason: this
+ * depends on SQLite, a real dependency plenty of sites won't want).
+ * Every method that touches Lib\Db is only reachable when the flag is
+ * true, so a site that never enables it never gets a data/ database file
+ * created just because this class exists.
+ *
+ * Bootstrap posture while enabled but with zero users yet: open access,
+ * so the first user can be created at /admin/users (or with
+ * `php novaconium/bin/create-admin-user.php`) — the same window the old
+ * Basic Auth had between deciding to enable it and pasting a hash into
+ * App/config.php. Enabling the flag alone protects nothing; creating the
+ * first user is what closes the gate.
 */
 final class AdminAuth
 {
+    private const SESSION_KEY = '_admin_user_id';
+
    /**
-     * Exits with a 401 challenge if the request isn't authenticated.
-     * A no-op (auth disabled) when $passwordHash is empty.
+     * Per-request memo for currentUser() — static state never survives
+     * across requests (same guarantee Lib\Session's flash swap relies on),
+     * so this only saves repeat lookups within one request.
+     *
+     * @var array<string, mixed>|null
     */
-    public static function requireLogin(string $username, string $passwordHash): void
+    private static ?array $currentUser = null;
+
+    private static bool $currentUserLoaded = false;
+
+    /**
+     * Redirects to /admin/login and exits if nobody is logged in. A no-op
+     * (open access) when $enabled is false, or while no users exist yet
+     * (see the class docblock). bootstrap.php calls this for every
+     * /admin/* route except admin/login itself — which must stay
+     * reachable logged-out, or the redirect would loop — and then
+     * separately 404s admin routes for logged-in non-admins (a registered
+     * user is *authenticated*, so bouncing them back to the login form
+     * would be a lie; what they lack is the admin role).
+     */
+    public static function requireLogin(bool $enabled): void
    {
-        if (self::isAuthenticated($username, $passwordHash)) {
+        if (self::isLoggedIn($enabled)) {
            return;
        }

-        header('WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="Admin"');
-        http_response_code(401);
-        header('Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8');
-        echo "401 Unauthorized\n";
+        http_response_code(303);
+        header('Location: /admin/login');
        exit;
    }

    /**
-     * The credential check on its own, with no response side effects —
-     * reused by requireLogin() above (401 challenge on failure) and by
-     * novaconium/bootstrap.php's draft-page gate (see /admin/docs/drafts),
-     * which needs a *different* response on failure: a plain 404, not a
-     * login prompt, so an unauthenticated visitor can't tell a draft
-     * exists at all. Returns true (open access) when $passwordHash is
-     * empty, matching requireLogin()'s existing no-op-when-unset posture —
-     * a draft behaves like the rest of /admin/*: wide open until a
-     * password is configured, gated once one is.
+     * Whether the request has any logged-in user at all, admin or
+     * registered. Returns true (open access) when $enabled is false or no
+     * users exist yet.
     */
-    public static function isAuthenticated(string $username, string $passwordHash): bool
+    public static function isLoggedIn(bool $enabled): bool
    {
-        if ($passwordHash === '') {
+        if (!$enabled || !self::hasUsers()) {
            return true;
        }

-        $providedUser = $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER'] ?? null;
-        $providedPass = $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_PW'] ?? null;
-
-        return $providedUser === $username
-            && $providedPass !== null
-            && password_verify($providedPass, $passwordHash);
+        return self::currentUser() !== null;
    }

    /**
-     * HTTP Basic Auth has no real server-side "log out" — the browser just
-     * keeps resending the cached credentials. The standard workaround: always
-     * issue a fresh 401 challenge here regardless of what was sent, which
-     * makes the browser discard the credentials it had cached for this realm
-     * and prompt again next time /admin is visited.
+     * Whether the request is by a logged-in admin, with no response side
+     * effects — the check behind /admin/* and the draft-page gate in
+     * novaconium/bootstrap.php (see /admin/docs/drafts), which reacts to
+     * failure with a plain 404, not a login redirect, so an
+     * unauthenticated visitor can't tell a draft exists at all. Returns
+     * true (open access) when $enabled is false or no users exist yet, so
+     * a draft behaves consistently with the rest of /admin/*: wide open
+     * until the feature is enabled and a first user exists, gated after
+     * that.
+     */
+    public static function isAdmin(bool $enabled): bool
+    {
+        if (!$enabled || !self::hasUsers()) {
+            return true;
+        }
+
+        $user = self::currentUser();
+
+        return $user !== null && $user['role'] === 'admin';
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Verifies a username/password against the users table and, on
+     * success, logs the session in. Disabled and unverified users fail
+     * exactly like a wrong password — the response never distinguishes
+     * "no such user", "disabled", "unverified", and "bad password" (see
+     * /admin/docs/admin-auth's email verification section). Unset
+     * verified_at means never verified (the verified_at/verification_token
+     * columns are part of novaconium/migrations/0002_create_users.sql); the
+     * first user ever created is inserted already-verified (see
+     * /admin/users and bin/create-admin-user.php), so verification only
+     * actually gates accounts created after it.
+     */
+    public static function attempt(string $username, string $password): bool
+    {
+        if ($username === '' || $password === '') {
+            return false;
+        }
+
+        $user = Db::query(
+            'SELECT id, username, email, password_hash, role, user_group, is_disabled, verified_at FROM users WHERE username = ?',
+            [$username]
+        )->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
+
+        if ($user === false || (int) $user['is_disabled'] === 1 || $user['verified_at'] === null || !password_verify($password, $user['password_hash'])) {
+            return false;
+        }
+
+        // Fresh session id on login so a pre-login session id (which an
+        // attacker could have planted or observed) never becomes an
+        // authenticated one — see Session::regenerate().
+        Session::regenerate();
+        Session::set(self::SESSION_KEY, (int) $user['id']);
+
+        unset($user['password_hash']);
+        self::$currentUser = $user;
+        self::$currentUserLoaded = true;
+
+        return true;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * A real server-side logout (unlike the Basic Auth predecessor's
+     * 401-challenge trick): drop the logged-in user id from the session
+     * and regenerate the session id.
     */
    public static function logout(): void
    {
-        header('WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="Admin"');
-        http_response_code(401);
-        header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
-        echo '<p>You have been logged out. <a href="/">Return home</a>.</p>';
-        exit;
+        Session::remove(self::SESSION_KEY);
+        Session::regenerate();
+
+        self::$currentUser = null;
+        self::$currentUserLoaded = true;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * The logged-in user's row (id/username/email/role/user_group/
+     * is_disabled — never the password hash), or null. Re-checked against
+     * the users table on every request, not just at login, so disabling,
+     * deleting, or un-verifying (e.g. an email change reset — see
+     * /admin/docs/admin-auth) a user locks their existing session out on
+     * its very next request — no "still logged in until the session
+     * expires" window.
+     *
+     * @return array<string, mixed>|null
+     */
+    public static function currentUser(): ?array
+    {
+        if (self::$currentUserLoaded) {
+            return self::$currentUser;
+        }
+
+        self::$currentUserLoaded = true;
+
+        $userId = Session::get(self::SESSION_KEY);
+        if (!is_int($userId)) {
+            return null;
+        }
+
+        $user = Db::query(
+            'SELECT id, username, email, role, user_group, is_disabled FROM users WHERE id = ? AND is_disabled = 0 AND verified_at IS NOT NULL',
+            [$userId]
+        )->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
+
+        self::$currentUser = $user === false ? null : $user;
+
+        return self::$currentUser;
+    }
+
+    public static function hasUsers(): bool
+    {
+        return (bool) Db::query('SELECT EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM users)')->fetchColumn();
    }
 }
@@ -104,12 +104,21 @@ final class ContentIndexer
            $insertSearch = $pdo->prepare('INSERT INTO content_search (route, title, body) VALUES (?, ?, ?)');

            $newestMtime = 0;
+            $sourceCount = 0;

            foreach ($routes as $dir) {
                if (in_array($dir, $config['draft_routes'], true)) {
                    continue;
                }

+                // Count every non-draft routable page, regardless of
+                // whether it ends up indexed (a noindex or Response-only
+                // page still counts) — this is a stable fingerprint of the
+                // routable page *set*, so isStale() can notice a deletion,
+                // which the newest-mtime check alone can't (deleting a page
+                // only ever lowers the max mtime, never raises it).
+                $sourceCount++;
+
                $mtime = self::sourceMtime($config['pages_dirs'], $dir);
                $newestMtime = max($newestMtime, $mtime);

@@ -140,8 +149,8 @@ final class ContentIndexer
            }

            $pdo->prepare('DELETE FROM content_index_meta')->execute();
-            $pdo->prepare('INSERT INTO content_index_meta (id, newest_source_mtime, indexed_at) VALUES (1, ?, ?)')
-                ->execute([$newestMtime, gmdate('Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z')]);
+            $pdo->prepare('INSERT INTO content_index_meta (id, newest_source_mtime, source_count, indexed_at) VALUES (1, ?, ?, ?)')
+                ->execute([$newestMtime, $sourceCount, gmdate('Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z')]);

            $pdo->commit();
        } catch (\Throwable $e) {
@@ -166,17 +175,26 @@ final class ContentIndexer
    {
        $pdo = Db::connection();

-        $meta = $pdo->query('SELECT newest_source_mtime FROM content_index_meta WHERE id = 1')->fetch();
+        $meta = $pdo->query('SELECT newest_source_mtime, source_count FROM content_index_meta WHERE id = 1')->fetch();
        if ($meta === false) {
            return true;
        }

        $newest = 0;
+        $count = 0;
        foreach (Overlay::listPageDirs($config['pages_dirs']) as $dir) {
+            if (in_array($dir, $config['draft_routes'], true)) {
+                continue;
+            }
+            $count++;
            $newest = max($newest, self::sourceMtime($config['pages_dirs'], $dir));
        }

-        return $newest > (int) $meta['newest_source_mtime'];
+        // A newer source file means an edit/addition; a changed page count
+        // means a page was deleted (or a draft toggled) — the mtime check
+        // alone can't see a deletion, since removing a page only lowers the
+        // max mtime. Either signal means the index is stale.
+        return $newest > (int) $meta['newest_source_mtime'] || $count !== (int) $meta['source_count'];
    }

    /**
@@ -5,7 +5,11 @@
 $uri = urldecode(parse_url($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], PHP_URL_PATH));

 if ($uri !== '/' && str_ends_with($uri, '/')) {
-    header('Location: ' . rtrim($uri, '/'), true, 301);
+    // Preserve the query string across the canonical redirect — Apache's
+    // .htaccess does this automatically, so dev must too or post/redirect
+    // flows like /contact/?sent=1 lose their flags under `php -S`.
+    $query = parse_url($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], PHP_URL_QUERY);
+    header('Location: ' . rtrim($uri, '/') . ($query !== null ? '?' . $query : ''), true, 301);
    exit;
 }
Author	SHA1	Message	Date
nick	5bf0582468	beta works with personal test site.	2026-08-02 14:04:37 -07:00
nick	7650354abd	updated readme	2026-07-20 22:00:45 -07:00
nick	0831331fe3	changed to php base	2026-07-20 20:30:03 -07:00
code	76fd1ca3ed	Install php-sqlite for pdo_sqlite; add generator meta tag Arch splits pdo_sqlite/sqlite3 into a separate php-sqlite package — installing the sqlite CLI package alone left php.ini's pdo_sqlite uncomment with no module to enable. pdo_mysql needs no such package; it ships in core php via the bundled mysqlnd driver. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>	2026-07-17 03:00:31 +00:00
code	15b32ed256	Make Docker bind mounts actually work; refresh homepage feature grid App/, cache/, uploads/, and data/ are now bind-mounted by default, so docker-entrypoint.sh seeds an empty App/ from a build-time backup and re-chowns the mounted paths to http:http on every start (a bind mount doesn't inherit a named volume's ownership or get seeded from the image the way COPY does). Also fixes AllowOverride never actually being enabled (the sed pattern didn't account for httpd.conf's indentation, so only DirectoryIndex-served routes worked) and pins Apache/PHP/SQLite to a dated Arch Linux Archive snapshot for reproducible builds. Homepage's feature grid was six cards behind what's actually shipped; brought it in line with the features blog post. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>	2026-07-17 02:43:03 +00:00
code	d1ce803412	Fix review findings; consolidate pre-release migrations Bug fixes: - Deleting a user with comments no longer 500s: remove the user's comments first (covers old DBs) and add ON DELETE CASCADE to the FK. - Drop 'svg' from the default media upload allowlist (stored-XSS vector for files served directly from public/uploads/). - Content index now reindexes on page deletion: track routable page count in content_index_meta and treat a count change as stale, since the newest-mtime check alone can't see a removal. - Dev router (public/router.php) preserves the query string across the canonical trailing-slash redirect, matching .htaccess. - Fix stale worked-example reference in the comments thread partial. Migrations: since v2 is unreleased with no live databases, fold the incremental ALTERs into the base migrations rather than shipping them separately: verification columns into 0002_create_users.sql, source_count into 0001_create_content_index.sql; renumber comments to 0003. Update all code/doc references to the removed/renamed files. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>	2026-07-16 05:30:10 +00:00
code	8540c6d9ea	Scope Ecommerce down to Lib helpers; prune stale Done entries in ISSUES.md Replace the single Ecommerce entry with three composable Lib\ pieces (Money, Cart, payment gateway) instead of a framework-owned catalog/ checkout/order-admin system — a project's idea of a "product" is too site-specific to standardize, so it builds its own on Lib\Db like any other feature. Also removes four Done entries (In-house comments, Email verification, Media/file manager, User deletion & email addresses) that nothing open still depends on or references, per this file's own stated retention policy — their history remains in git log and the shipping commits. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>	2026-07-15 19:49:13 +00:00
code	64defe7f74	Add in-house comments (Lib\Comments) A reusable comment thread any sidecar can attach to any page, tied to real logged-in accounts (never anonymous), auto-approved on submission with hide/delete moderation at /admin/comments — only a verified account can post, so there's no anonymous-spam vector to pre-vet against. Framework-level (novaconium/lib, novaconium/migrations, novaconium/pages), not App/migrations, matching Admin auth and Media manager's shape. A page needs its own sidecar to use it — this repo has no client-side JS, so comments ride the same server-rendered POST pattern as every other dynamic feature, which is also what excludes a page from the static cache. App/pages/blog/comments-demo/ demonstrates the pattern without touching existing posts that are referenced elsewhere as the sidecar-less example. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>	2026-07-15 19:38:04 +00:00
code	e699027b4b	Add email verification for user accounts Every account created after the first must confirm a 24-hour link (Lib\Mailer::sendMail(), log-file or MailJet) before AdminAuth::attempt() allows login, folded into the same generic pass/fail as a disabled account or wrong password. First user and pre-migration rows are grandfathered; create-admin-user.php also auto-verifies for lockout recovery. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>	2026-07-15 19:23:20 +00:00
code	c0455241ea	Slim down README: features to a blog post, docs pointer, ASCII banner Features section becomes a "Novaconium Features" blog post (App/pages/blog/novaconium-features/), demonstrating the framework's own content model rather than living as a long bullet list in README.md. Getting started is trimmed to the minimum needed to run the site and reach /admin/docs, which is now the single canonical source for every topic (Docker, deploying, project layout, etc.) instead of being mirrored into README.md. Third-party section kept as-is. AGENTS.md's documentation-duplication rule updated to describe this new split so future changes don't re-bloat the README. Also adds an ASCII art banner above the title. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>	2026-07-15 07:44:51 +00:00
code	a0ae58c29e	Add Media manager (/admin/media), remove unused images/ scaffolding Upload/browse/delete UI for files under public/uploads/, covered by the existing /admin/* auth gate with no separate feature flag needed (no SQLite dependency to gate). Extension allowlist and max upload size are configurable; filenames are sanitized and de-duplicated on upload, and deletes re-verify the resolved path lands inside the upload directory before touching disk. Docker gains a fourth-turned-third named volume for public/uploads/ so uploads survive a rebuild. images/ (reserved scaffolding for a future image feature) is removed — nothing ever consumed it, and public/uploads/ now covers that use case. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>	2026-07-15 07:35:45 +00:00
code	6624c4fdc3	Add Docker support: Arch/Apache/PHP image, three volumes, docs Adds a root Dockerfile (Arch Linux + Apache + PHP) and docker-compose.yml with separate cache/data/images volumes, so a project's own content, page cache, and future uploaded images stay out of paths a framework update would wipe. App/ is baked into the image but can be bind-mounted to override without a rebuild. Renames the Sass build-tool Dockerfile example in the styling doc to Dockerfile.sass to avoid colliding with the new app Dockerfile, adds a new /admin/docs/docker page (linked from the docs index and nav), and documents the reserved images/ directory in AGENTS.md and README. Also records the user's git/docker execution permission boundaries in CLAUDE.md for future sessions. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>	2026-07-15 07:15:17 +00:00
nick	f6fb2f12c6	light housekeeping	2026-07-14 23:50:13 -07:00
code	b37b13120e	Add commit ref to the three auth-related Done entries in ISSUES.md Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>	2026-07-15 00:18:42 +00:00
code	b882c304b1	Replace Basic Auth with multi-user login, roles, groups, and Lib\Access Admin login & user management (novaconium/ISSUES.md): session-based login against a SQLite users table replaces the single-user HTTP Basic Auth stopgap (admin_username/admin_password_hash and /admin/password-hash are gone; one admin_auth_enabled flag, off by default with zero DB footprint). New /admin/login, /admin/logout (POST-only, real page), and /admin/users pages plus bin/create-admin-user.php. First user created is the admin; everyone after is registered with a unique normalized email and an optional group. /admin/* and drafts are admin-only; Lib\Access gates page content from sidecars (Access::require('group:members')) with login-redirect/404 responses — public by default, static pages always public by construction. User management covers disable/enable, delete, promote/demote, group, email, and password, with last-active-admin lockout guards. Also: Session::regenerate() against fixation, friendly missing-PDO-driver errors in Lib\Db, docs at /admin/docs/access-control and updates across admin-auth/drafts/sidecars/config/libraries and README/AGENTS.md. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>	2026-07-15 00:17:54 +00:00