Skip to content

docs(tooling): make the README a homepage - #124

Merged
Theauxm merged 1 commit into
mainfrom
docs/readme-homepage
Oct 29, 2026
Merged

Theauxm merged 1 commit into
mainfrom
docs/readme-homepage

Conversation

@Theauxm

@Theauxm Theauxm commented Oct 29, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Member

The README explains what Trax is for before it shows any code

Background

Most people meet Trax on the GitHub repository page, not the docs. Until now the README was
kept minimal: badges, the template commands, a train snippet, the folder table, the colour key.
That suited someone who already knew what a train was, but it left a newcomer with no idea what
problem Trax solves or which part of the work is theirs.

Problem

⬛ The first screen doesn't say what Trax is for
It opens with badges and dotnet new. The one-line pitch is there, but nothing shows a client
sending a move and the server deciding.

⬛ The example shows a train and nothing else
RecalculateLeaderboardTrain is a chain of two junctions. It doesn't show a state machine,
a rule, a guard or a refusal, which is the part that sets Trax apart from a job runner.

⬛ There's no list of what it does
The folder table says where things live, not what you get. The samples, which are the
quickest way to see Trax working, are a single link.

Example

What a visitor sees, top to bottom:

Before After
Title and five badges Centred logo, tagline, nav links (Quick start, Trax in five minutes, Docs, the book, Samples), badges
One-line pitch The figure of how a move is checked, then a paragraph on what Trax is
Install Quick start: the template commands plus dotnet run and the URLs it serves
What you write, and what Trax does: the table from the intro
A two-junction train The book's checkout rules and its PlaceOrderTrain, then what a client gets back: NO_TRANSITION, FORBIDDEN, GUARD_FAILED with "Choose how to pay."
Features: eight bold one-liners, each checked against the docs
Link to Trax.Samples StateMachine and Recovery screenshots, and a line each for Board, ChatService, Scheduling and DistributedWorkers
Where this fits, colour key Where this fits unchanged; the colour key collapsed into a <details>
Sponsors, Contributing, License Unchanged

How this solves it

⬛ Lead with the idea, then the split, then the code
The figure and the paragraph say what Trax is for. The table says which parts the reader
writes. The example shows that code and what Trax does with it. Everything below that is
reference material for someone who's already interested.

flowchart TD
    H["Header: logo, tagline, links"] --> F["Figure: how a move is checked"]
    F --> Q["Quick start"]
    Q --> S["You write / Trax does"]
    S --> E["Example: checkout rules + PlaceOrder train"]
    E --> Feat["Features"]
    Feat --> Sam["Samples"]
    Sam --> W["Where this fits"]
    class H,F,Q,S,E,Feat,Sam,W tooling
    classDef tooling fill:#334155,stroke:#0f172a,color:#fff
Loading

⬛ Nothing in it is new code
The logo is the site's icon, the figure comes from the docs, the screenshots come from the
samples and the snippets are trimmed from the book's Shopfront. Every relative link was
checked against the branch.

Architectural hinges

  • ⬛ README.md: the whole change.
  • ⬛ Trax.Docs/images/propose-decide.svg: the figure the README embeds, from the docs
    figures. Change it in Trax.Docs/tools/figures/draw.py, not here.

The README is the first thing most people read, and it opened with
badges, a template command and a train snippet without saying what
Trax is for or which part of a process the reader writes.

Give it a centred header with the logo, tagline and links, the figure
of how a move is checked, a short paragraph on what Trax is, the quick
start the templates already document, the "you write / Trax does"
table from the intro, a worked checkout example with the refusals a
client gets, a features list, and the StateMachine and Recovery
screenshots with the other samples. The layer table stays; the colour
key moves into a collapsed section.
@vercel

vercel Bot commented Oct 29, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown

The latest updates on your projects. Learn more about Vercel for GitHub.

1 Skipped Deployment
Project Deployment Actions Updated
trax-website Ignored Ignored Oct 29, 2026 4:32pm UTC

@codecov

codecov Bot commented Oct 29, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.

📢 Thoughts on this report? Let us know!

@Theauxm
Theauxm merged commit f154cf7 into main Oct 29, 2026
41 of 45 checks passed
@Theauxm
Theauxm deleted the docs/readme-homepage branch October 29, 2026 17:00
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

1 participant