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platform/todo/url-state/can-the-query-strings-come-out-of-the-flow.md
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pastilhasandClaude Fable 5 44f6c6d6ac todo: group the url and query-string items into one theme
files-app becomes url-state: the file browser is where the work happened, but where
selection lives and who clears a query string are framework questions. The panel
framework's version of the same question moves in beside them, extracted from the
deep-read item, which keeps it as one of its three questions.

Item ids changed with the theme. Done now deliberately — no board reads them yet, and
this is the last cheap moment to move one.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-21 16:40:39 +00:00

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---
id: url-state/can-the-query-strings-come-out-of-the-flow
title: "Can the query strings come out of the flow?"
theme: url-state
status: open
created: 2026-08-20
date_source: assumed
order: 4
---
**Can the query strings come out of the flow?** One of the three questions the Workspace/Panel deep
read set out to answer rather than assume (`workspaces-panels/a-deep-read-of-the-whole-framework-to`),
pulled out to sit beside the file browser's version of the same problem — which is the only place the
question has actually been worked through end to end.
What makes it a real question rather than a tidy-up: a query string is doing several different jobs at
once across the app. In `/files` it names the open overlay (`?view=<name>`), which is addressable state
and belongs in the URL. `src/workspaces/components/NavLink.tsx` appends a **global** query string to
every link it renders — a different job again, and one most callers never think about. And
`docs/navigation-audit.md` prescribes `?selected=<id>` for a master list with a live preview, because
the detail route is the full page.
So "come out of the flow" is not one change. Deciding which of those uses are load-bearing addressable
state and which are ambient plumbing being carried around is the work, and the answer probably differs
per case.
Related, and the reason this theme exists: `url-state/the-acts-that-clear-the-overlay-have-no-owner`
is the same shape one layer down — the params are named in one place, but every site still decides for
itself whether to honour them.