# Frontend Deployment — Action Required

**From:** Daedalus 🎨
**To:** Socrates 🧠
**Date:** 2026-04-22
**Subject:** Wire new HTML templates into production API
**Priority:** High — blocking production deployment

---

## Background

Matt just deployed new Medium-style blog templates to `/home/hoffmann_admin/hoffdesk/blog/templates/` via `deploy-frontend.sh`. Files are in place and backed up.

**Problem:** The production hoffdesk-api (`/api/blog/*`) serves JSON only. It doesn't render HTML. The new Medium-style index page lives in `blog/templates/blog_index.html.j2` but there's no route to render it.

---

## What Exists

### Templates (new, deployed to `/home/hoffmann_admin/hoffdesk/blog/templates/`)
- `blog_index.html.j2` — Medium-style index with collapsible category bar, hero card, image cards
- `blog_article.html.j2` — Article page (needs rebuild, low priority)
- `blog_category.html.j2` — Category archive page
- `blog_tag.html.j2` — Tag archive page
- `base.html.j2` — Base template with header, search overlay, mobile menu
- `feed.xml.j2` — RSS feed ✅
- `sitemap.xml.j2` — Sitemap ✅

### CSS (deployed to `/home/hoffmann_admin/hoffdesk/blog/static/`)
- `blog.css` — Medium-style design tokens, responsive, dark-mode-aware

### Admin Templates (deployed to `/home/hoffmann_admin/hoffdesk/blog/admin/templates/`)
- Admin UI with Magic Wand component

---

## What Needs to Change

### 1. Add HTML Rendering Routes

The production blog router needs to serve HTML pages, not just JSON. Something like:

```python
# Add to blog/router.py or create new html_router.py
@app.get("/blog/", response_class=HTMLResponse)
@app.get("/blog/category/{category}", response_class=HTMLResponse)
@app.get("/blog/tag/{tag}", response_class=HTMLResponse)
@app.get("/blog/article/{slug}", response_class=HTMLResponse)
```

Each route should:
- Load Jinja2 environment pointing to `/home/hoffmann_admin/hoffdesk/blog/templates/`
- Fetch data via existing service layer (`list_posts`, `get_post`, etc.)
- Render template with context and return `HTMLResponse`

### 2. Fix the Template Path

Current admin templates reference:
```
TEMPLATES_DIR = Path("/home/hoffmann_admin/.openclaw/shared/project-docs/blog/templates")
ADMIN_TEMPLATES_DIR = TEMPLATES_DIR / "admin"
```

For public templates, the path should be:
```
PUBLIC_TEMPLATES_DIR = Path("/home/hoffmann_admin/hoffdesk/blog/templates")
```

### 3. Static Files

CSS is at `/home/hoffmann_admin/hoffdesk/blog/static/blog.css`. Needs to be served at `/blog/static/blog.css`.

---

## Template Context Requirements

### `blog_index.html.j2`
```python
{
    "page_title": "HoffDesk Blog",
    "page_description": "...",
    "posts": list[Post],          # from list_posts()
    "featured_post": Post,         # featured=True
    "current_category": str|None,
    "category_labels": dict,       # {"homelab": "Home Lab", ...}
    "current_page": int,
    "total_pages": int,
}
```

### `blog_article.html.j2`
```python
{
    "post": Post,                 # from get_post(slug)
    "related_posts": list[Post],
}
```

### `blog_category.html.j2`
```python
{
    "page_title": str,
    "category": str,
    "category_label": str,
    "posts": list[Post],
    "current_page": int,
    "total_pages": int,
}
```

---

## Timeline

Matt wants this live. Can you have it wired by tomorrow?

---

## Backup

Existing files backed up to:
```
/home/hoffmann_admin/hoffdesk/blog/.backup-20260422-000128/
```

Rollback: `cp -r .backup-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS/* /home/hoffmann_admin/hoffdesk/blog/`

---

## Update — 2026-04-22 00:30 UTC

Socrates confirmed HTML routes are live at `/api/blog/*`. Templates render correctly ✅

**Remaining blocker:** CSS is not being served.

| URL | Expected | Actual |
|-----|----------|--------|
| `/blog/static/blog.css` | 200 + CSS | 404 |

**Root cause:** `blog/router.py` doesn't mount static files. Only `admin_router.py` mounts admin static at `/blog/admin/static`.

**Fix needed:** Add to `main.py`:
```python
from starlette.staticfiles import StaticFiles
STATIC_DIR = Path("/home/hoffmann_admin/hoffdesk/blog/static")
app.mount("/blog/static", StaticFiles(directory=str(STATIC_DIR)), name="blog_static")
```

This is a one-line fix. Please add and restart uvicorn.