18 · Release marker

An app left in the background for a week can show a week-old version and have no idea of it. An ordinary page reloads on entry; an installed one is often resumed where it was abandoned.

The release marker settles that without guesswork. It is not a build hash, because there is no build here in that sense — the content is files in a repository, and deployment leaves no identifier behind. So it is assembled from the things that genuinely change when what a reader sees changes.

The page checks the marker and, seeing that the deployment has moved on, refreshes itself. The reader need not know such a thing exists — and that is the point.