The Explore walk got stuck in dense signatures — neighbours all too similar, so
forward-arrow couldn't escape and Random was the only exit. Root cause: MMR only
diversifies WITHIN the nearest ~400 pool; in a dense cluster that whole pool is
near-identical, so there's no escape route in it.
- gallery_service.similar(reach=0.0, exclude_ids=None): reach>0 widens the pool
(cap 400→1000) and _reach_sample strides across an outward-growing distance span
so the set handed to MMR spans near→mid-far (guaranteed escape routes), not just
the tight cluster. exclude_ids drops already-walked images. Gallery 'more like
this' (reach=0) is unchanged.
- api/gallery similar: parse reach + exclude_ids.
- explore store: default reach 0.4 (auto-diversifies without touching the dial),
pass the breadcrumb as exclude_ids, setReach action.
- ExploreView: a Near↔Far reach slider in the trail.
- tests: _reach_sample math (deeper ranks with higher reach, near kept); similar
exclude_ids drops walked + reach path runs clean.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Explore's neighbour grid (/api/gallery/similar → gallery_service.similar) now
takes an Explore-only exclude_wip flag that drops `wip` system-tagged images
from the candidates, alongside the banner/editor presentation tags. The
gallery's own "similar" button is unchanged (keeps wip, #1274) — only the
Explore store passes exclude_wip=1. The anchor itself may still be a WIP; only
neighbours are filtered.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three tag-flow gaps in the view modal (and the Explore workspace, which
shares TagPanel):
- the type-to-add dropdown now filters both its sections against the
imageledger applied tags reactively, so a just-added tag disappears
from search the moment the chip rail updates instead of after a
modal refresh
- manually picking or creating a tag the model also suggested routes
through the suggestion-accept flow: the acceptance is recorded for
head training and the row leaves the panel, instead of the add
silently bypassing the feedback loop
- removing a tag reloads the suggestion lists, so a model-suggested tag
returns to the suggestions area (flagged rejected, one-click
reversible) rather than vanishing until the next modal open
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01CDgx8bQS5YrGRK76v8HUnM
Pure nearest-cosine piled near-identical images into the neighbour grid — a
reposted banner filled all 24 slots, and once you wandered into a B&W /
comic-panel cluster every neighbour was more of the same with no way back to
colour without the Random button (operator-reported, with screenshot).
similar() now over-fetches a wide candidate pool (5x the requested limit, cap
200), then diversifies down to `limit`:
- pHash near-duplicate collapse: drop candidates within 6 Hamming bits of the
anchor or an already-kept candidate, so a repost (and the anchor's own clones)
appears at most once.
- MMR re-rank: greedily pick for closeness-to-anchor minus similarity-to-already
-picked (lambda 0.55), so the result SPANS clusters instead of returning 40
variations of one image. Falls back to nearest-order on any failure / small
pool, so existing nearest-first behaviour is unchanged when there's nothing to
diversify.
Frontend forwardTarget drops the now-redundant skip-nearest-third hack (the list
is already diversified server-side) — plain random-over-unvisited gives the
variance now.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Ttrj5P7upUTueSfoJcxEqa
Two reports: → sometimes "loops back", and the walk gets stuck on near-identical
images. Cause: forwardTarget picked a uniformly-random neighbour from the 24
NEAREST, so it (a) often landed on an image already in the trail — which snaps
the cursor back into history and makes → bounce between visited nodes — and (b)
only ever offered near-duplicates.
forwardTarget now: excludes already-visited neighbours (→ opens something new,
no snap-back), and skips the closest third of the (similarity-sorted) pool so the
jump favours the more-varied remainder instead of lookalikes. Neighbour pool
widened 24→40 for more variety to browse + jump into. The post-← browser-forward
walk through visited crumbs is unchanged.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Ttrj5P7upUTueSfoJcxEqa
Arrow keys walk the Explore breadcrumb trail: ← steps back, → goes forward to
an already-visited item or — with no forward history — jumps to a RANDOM
neighbour to keep the rabbit-hole going (operator-asked).
The trail gains a cursor (browser back/forward semantics): stepping back no
longer trims the forward branch, so → can return to it; a genuinely new walk
off a back-step truncates the stale branch then appends. The crumb-bar "current"
highlight follows the cursor, not the tip.
Arrows are ignored while typing a tag, but still navigate when the tag input is
focused-but-empty (it auto-focuses after every walk, so otherwise arrow-nav
would dead-end after one step). Modifier-key combos pass through untouched.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Ttrj5P7upUTueSfoJcxEqa
Reworks Explore from "anchor + neighbour grid + cluster tag-gap rail" into a
persistent 3-pane workspace that unfolds the image modal so you can tag while
rabbit-holing (operator concept 2026-06-26):
- LEFT neighbour grid (larger thumbs), click = walk; breadcrumb retained.
- CENTER light viewer — reuses ImageCanvas + ImageMetaBar(:image) for the
focused image; "Open full viewer" still launches the overlay modal.
- RIGHT the modal's TagPanel, hosted on the anchor for modal-parity tagging
(chips, autocomplete, suggestions + Accept, fandom-on-chip, T/"/" focus).
Reuse without destabilising the audited modal store: TagPanel and
SuggestionsPanel gain an optional `host` prop (default = modal store, so the
image modal is unchanged); the explore store implements the same small
tag-CRUD surface (current/currentImageId + reloadTags/addExistingTag/
removeTag/createAndAdd) over the anchor. ImageMetaBar gains an optional
`image` prop for the same reason.
Drops the mass/cluster tagger (TagGapPanel deleted; clusterIds/thumbById
removed) — per-image tagging feeds the per-tag reference-embedding centroid
better than bulk ops.
Nav: keep the Explore tab but bare /explore now SEEDS a random image
(GET /api/showcase?limit=1 → /explore/:id) so the tab kick-starts a rabbit
hole; explicit meta.navOrder pins nav order (Explore after Gallery) since
router.getRoutes() doesn't preserve declaration order.
Note: the backend cluster tag-gaps route/service (#94a) is now frontend-orphaned
— left in place; flag for a separate cleanup.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Cluster C frontend, milestone #94.
#94b Explore walk: new /explore/:imageId route + ExploreView + explore store.
Anchor (reuse /api/gallery/image), neighbour grid (reuse /api/gallery/similar,
24), click a neighbour to re-anchor; in-memory breadcrumb that trims on
backtrack (route is the source of truth). Empty/loading/error + no-embedding
states.
#94c tag-gap closing: components/explore/TagGapPanel — fetches
/api/images/cluster/tag-gaps for the anchor+neighbours, a consensus-threshold
slider (default 60%), per gap shows present/total + the missing thumbnails +
'Apply to N missing' → /api/tags/images/bulk/tags (source manual) → re-fetch.
#94d entry points: 'Explore' button in the modal RelatedStrip; the TopNav entry
comes free from the route's meta.title.
#4a metadata HUD + #4b split Download: new modal ImageMetaBar (always-on, above
ProvenancePanel) shows dimensions/size/type and a split Download button
(default Download, chevron → Copy link via utils/clipboard — no clipboard-image,
rule 95).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01XCUHUGQLrBrkgyk1t49kpX
bvandeusen