Project Diary — Day 15

March 9, 2026  |  Session Focus: Link Audit Sprint & Broken Link Repair
15Day
46→5Orphans Cleared
34→16Broken Links Fixed
-aNew Script Flag

Session Summary

Day 15 was a focused link audit and repair sprint. The session opened with a clean restart — dropping context files one at a time to restore full project awareness before touching anything. The new check_ai_tree.sh -a flag (built and deployed this session) immediately revealed that the old index-only scan had been masking a large class of false orphans — files correctly linked from hub pages like project-diary.html that were never linked from an index.html.

With accurate data in hand, the session worked systematically through broken links by category — fixing wrong relative paths, dead CSS references, a renamed file, a case mismatch, and several nav link errors across multiple files.

Script Enhancement: check_ai_tree.sh -a

The Problem

The original script only scanned index.html files as link sources. Files linked from hub pages like project-diary.html were incorrectly flagged as orphans because no index.html linked to them.

The Fix

Added -a (all HTML) flag — scans every .html file in the tree as a link source. Hub pages, diary indexes, and content pages all count. Scanned source files are excluded from orphan reporting since they ARE the navigation structure.

check_ai_tree.sh -a /var/www/html/LessonPlans/AI/

Result

Orphan count dropped from 46 to 5 on first run with the new flag. The 5 remaining orphans are all legitimate — unlinked addendum files and duplicate PDFs.

Broken Links Fixed This Session

Dead CSS Reference — styles.css (3 files)

Early diary entries and working-with-ai.html contained a No styles.css ever existed — the site uses inline styles throughout. Removed from:

Renamed File Reference

learning/AI-architecture-stack.html linked to ../collaboration/AI-As-A-Collaborator.html — file was renamed to AI-as-work-partner.html. Fixed both occurrences (lines 414 and 423).

Case Mismatch

learning/how-to-use-this-site.html linked to AI-learning-plan-beginners.html — actual filename is AI-Learning-Plan-For-Beginners.html. Fixed.

Wrong Relative Paths in Diary Entries

Multiple files in building-in-public/ linked to project-diary.html without the required ../ prefix. Fixed in:

New Cards Added to Hub Pages

New File Created

collaboration/building-in-public/2026-03-07-PROJECT-DIARY.html — Day 13 diary entry was missing. Built from session knowledge and deployed.

Remaining Known Issues

Intentional Leave-Alones

To-Do Next Session

Audit Progress — Day 15 Final

MetricStart of Day 15End of Day 15
Orphaned files465
Broken links34~16
Script capabilityindex.html onlyall HTML (-a flag)

Observations

The clean restart protocol continues to prove its value. Dropping context files one at a time gave a clean, shared picture before any work began. The -a flag discovery was the insight of the day — sometimes the tool itself is the problem, not the data it's reporting.

Systematic categorization of broken links (A through G) made the work manageable and kept us from chasing low-value fixes. Knowing what to leave alone is as important as knowing what to fix.


cmh — AI Education Project Day 15 — March 9, 2026
Next session: Day 16 — Remaining cleanup items, then deep-dive/ CLI tools pages.