Demo Guide

DiscussionBridge demos show how the same Discourse-centered publication model fits different publishing platforms without erasing each platform’s native content, routes, presentation, or operating model.

Start at the demo chooser. Exact component versions, rollout state, and current acceptance boundaries are recorded in Versions And Live Status.

What To Explore

DiscussionBridge For Discourse

The Bridge is the dedicated DiscussionBridge for Discourse demonstration. The Bridge is the demo name, not the generic name of the plugin or receiver.

Use it to inspect Content Connections, Bridge Records, publication policy, and Discourse-owned content selected for publication to connected platforms.

Platform Demonstrations

The chooser links maintained demonstrations for Astro, Ghost, Hugo, Statamic, and WordPress. Statamic is shown through its independently configured Flat, DB, and SSG profiles.

On a platform demo, look for:

• a native platform content object and canonical route;
• a visible source or discussion relationship;
• a clear route back to the demo home or publication index;
• the presentation mode used for discussion; and
• platform-native presentation with restrained, consistent DiscussionBridge identification.

The OBBBA demonstrations are a real-world Alpha exercise and may be processing an active backfill. They demonstrate platform behavior; they are not templates for a forum’s politics, editorial policy, or visual identity.

They also do not yet demonstrate a complete publishing-platform replacement. The planned Change Platforms, Keep The Discussion proof will migrate one representative record in each direction between two bidirectional platform connections. It will preserve both Bridge resources, topics, replies, and moderation histories; cut over the From Discourse destination; transfer the To Discourse source binding; verify old URL redirects and new canonical routes; deny the retired connection; and exercise coordinated rollback. The acceptance plan and current evidence boundary are in Change Platforms, Keep The Discussion.

The demos likewise do not yet prove a DiscussionBridge Network. The planned qualification uses dedicated categories on three existing live forums—one hub and two spokes—to demonstrate one-to-many fanout, explicit spoke-to-hub publication, independent directional records, category-only scope, and loop prevention. It is a separate planned capability, not an eighth CMS scale-test site and not evidence of synchronized replies or moderation across forums.

Publication Directions

DiscussionBridge keeps the direction explicit:

• To Discourse: a publishing platform owns the article or page and connects it to a Discourse topic.
• From Discourse: an authorized Discourse topic is materialized as native content on a connected publishing platform.

One direction does not imply unrestricted synchronization in the other. Single-writer rules protect the owning source, and exact retries should reuse the same durable identities instead of creating duplicate topics or pages.

Presentation Modes

Depending on the platform and route, a demo may use Simple, Full, or Interactive discussion presentation. These modes have different rendering, availability, and authentication boundaries. See Presentation Modes before comparing them.

What A Demo Proves

A reachable demo is evidence for the exact public surface and installed state that was verified. It does not by itself prove:

• the latest component release is installed;
• every publication direction or presentation mode was exercised;
• every platform version is compatible;
• upgrade, rollback, or provider recovery is complete; or
• product-family Alpha acceptance.

A demo estate populated From Discourse is not evidence that a large existing platform corpus can be imported To Discourse. That direction still requires an adapter-specific scale qualification.

Use the dated status record rather than inferring those claims from appearance alone.

Demo Ownership

Each deployable demo application owns its site-specific source, configuration, and deployment record. The corresponding component repository owns the plugin, adapter, addon, tests, and release lifecycle. The DiscussionBridge site and docs own the chooser, public explanation, and links.

Do not copy a component implementation or demo application into another repository merely for deployment convenience. A separate deployable repository should be an explicit, documented boundary.

Common Presentation Standard

Maintained public demos should provide:

• visible platform and DiscussionBridge naming;
• a usable route out of every detail page without relying on the browser Back button;
• correct DiscussionBridge, CodeWorksLabs, and WebSynergetics attribution;
• restrained branding that preserves the platform’s recognizable native experience; and
• analytics configured by the owning site’s deployment policy, without silently changing the adapter or protocol contract.

The detailed cross-platform standard and each adapter’s recovery behavior are documented in Adapter Operating Models.

Problems Or Feedback

If a demo is unavailable, stale, misidentified, or difficult to navigate, use Support And Feedback. Include the demo URL, time of observation, expected behavior, observed behavior, and non-secret browser or runtime details.