# The Long Return Institute — Development Completion Map v0.1

**Date:** 2026-09-10
**Purpose:** Separate what can be repaired in the website now from what requires human use, professional review, operational proof, or additional development.

## Mission
The Institute is not primarily a document repository or a demonstration of internal governance machinery. Its public function is to reduce the burden between information and responsible action. A useful route should help a person identify a first responsible contact, prepare the right question, know what to have ready, and recover when the first route fails.

The Long Return remains the home for current community information and place-rooted reporting. The Long Meanwhile, opening September 25, 2026, is the home for Christopher Knorr's authored essays, scholarship, and working papers. The Institute should turn research and institutional learning into maintained public-service tools without duplicating either site.

## Completed in v0.5.73

### Release control — REPAIRED
Website/release/search/stewardship identity is reconciled to v0.5.73. Public-shell publication is authorized; operational reliance on held constituent tools is not.

### Children & Family distribution — REPAIRED FOR NOW
Ordinary public surfaces lead to a status/options page. The interactive build remains a bounded institutional test and is not promoted as general-use public guidance.

### General starting route — REPAIRED
A visitor with no office name now has concrete branches for a named notice, child/family situation, education/work, family care, and a non-urgent Institute routing question.

### Funding transparency — HONEST PLACEHOLDER
The site now says current cash funding and in-kind support are not yet published. Completion requires the owner to provide the actual funding facts and effective date.

### Maintenance date language — REPAIRED
Website-update dates no longer imply that every source was reverified. Existing checked dates remain controlling until actual rechecks occur.

## Development work still required

### 1. Observed reader cycle — NOT YET PROVED
**Build/test:** Use one stable route, preferably Family Care or the general starting route. Ask a reader to find a first contact, prepare a question, identify a fallback, and locate corrections. Record hesitation and assistance.
**Completion evidence:** one dated task record + defect/repair note + what the test does and does not prove.

### 2. Correction cycle — NOT YET PROVED
**Build/test:** Take one real non-sensitive error or changed contact through report → source check → repair → correction record → follow-up.
**Completion evidence:** public correction note plus internal provenance record.

### 3. Second-operator handoff — NOT YET PROVED
**Build/test:** Give a second operator the maintained record and ask them to locate the controlling source, explain status, make a controlled test correction, and preserve the record without coaching.
**Completion evidence:** successful handoff record or an exact list of where the handoff failed.

### 4. Contact delivery and privacy practice — UNVERIFIED
**Build/test:** Submit an owner-controlled non-sensitive test through the live Netlify form; verify receipt, notification, retrieval, and recovery. Record who can access submissions, how long they are retained in actual practice, and what deletion/backup behavior is real.
**Completion evidence:** dated end-to-end test and a short public privacy/handling statement matching reality.

### 5. Real-device accessibility — PARTLY BUILT / NOT VERIFIED
**Build/test:** exact hosted release on phone, tablet, desktop; keyboard-only; screen reader; 200% zoom; print/PDF; held-tool noindex behavior.
**Completion evidence:** device/browser matrix with defects and repairs. Automated/static checks do not close this.

### 6. Source-maintenance queue — STRUCTURE EXISTS / CURRENT CHECKS INCOMPLETE
**Build/test:** prioritize contacts, deadlines, eligibility, active funding/service availability, and any correction signal. Do not apply one blanket 'checked' date.
**Completion evidence:** current source record with owner, checked date, recheck trigger, unresolved status where appropriate, and propagation to affected output.

### 7. Children & Family — BUILT AS TEST CANDIDATE / NOT PUBLICLY CLEARED
**Needed:** qualified legal-sufficiency review of exact successor; institution-run family/caregiver/trusted-helper testing; accessibility/device/physical-file review; release-date source recheck; host verification; backup maintenance capacity; explicit broader-release decision.
**Until then:** status/options page public; interactive build bounded.

### 8. Education & Work — BUILT AS REVIEW TOOL / RELIANCE NOT CLEARED
**Needed:** community-reader testing, real-device/accessibility/physical-use validation, exact-candidate source recheck, generated-file inspection, and owner decision on permitted public use.
**Until then:** public inspection and feedback are allowed; consequential decisions remain with responsible institutions.

### 9. Funding record — FACTS NEEDED FROM OWNER
**Needed:** actual cash funding sources, in-kind support, date range, and whether any support creates a disclosure obligation. Do not infer founder-funded from founder-led.

### 10. The Long Meanwhile relationship — STATUS CONTROL
**Current:** opening September 25, 2026. Institute pages should describe it as the home for authored essays/scholarship and should not treat it as a current service route before opening.
**Next check:** on or immediately before September 25, replace opening-status links with the actual publication URL only after the site is live and reviewed.

## Recommended sequence
1. Deploy v0.5.73 and verify exact-host routes/metadata.
2. Run contact-form end-to-end test.
3. Run one observed reader task on Family Care or general Navigation.
4. Carry one real correction through the full cycle.
5. Run second-operator handoff.
6. Perform risk-based source rechecks on promoted routes.
7. Run real-device/accessibility matrix.
8. Only then revisit broader Children & Family or Education release decisions.
9. Reconcile The Long Meanwhile links at its actual September 25 opening.

## Release principle
Do not add a new public offer merely because a tool exists. A public offer should match the audience, maintenance capacity, evidence, and reliance level actually established for it.