library-of-alexandria — HTML Directory site Template

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2026-10-13T21:45:58.216Z

# Library of Alexandria

**Everything a person needs to thrive, in one open library.**

A free, open-source learning platform gathering the practical knowledge of being a
capable human being — sleep, money, conflict, rights, evidence, repair, care,
meaning — into a single curriculum that anyone can read, fork, translate, print or
teach from.

| | |
| --- | --- |
| **12** halls | **63** modules · **124,000** words of prose |
| **8** pathways | ordered for triage, not tidiness |
| **316** glossary terms | linked to the modules that use them, and underlined in the text |
| **610** self-check questions | ~10 per module, retrieval-practice style |
| **26** templates | the actual words: letters, scripts, forms |
| **16** checklists | 211 tickable, printable items |
| **165** catalogued sources | 105 of them free |
| **12** emergency situations | what to do in the first minutes, works offline |
| **164,000** words in total | prose plus every reference layer |

Accessibility: **WCAG 2.2 AA**, verified across every route with a purpose-built
audit harness — zero findings over ~5,000 checked text nodes, and 0 of 256
colour pairs below threshold in all four themes.

- 📖 **[Browse the whole curriculum](CURRICULUM.md)**
- 🌐 **Live site: <https://sobanan-breakthrough.github.io/library-of-alexandria/>**
- 🤝 **[Contributing](CONTRIBUTING.md)** — corrections, translations and new modules welcome

---

## Why this exists

A person can leave school able to factorise a quadratic and unable to read a tenancy
agreement. The knowledge that most determines whether a life goes well — how to sleep,
how debt works, how to argue without wrecking a friendship, how to tell a good study
from a bad one, what to do in the first five minutes of a cardiac arrest, how to sit
with grief — is treated as something you pick up by luck, from a family that happened
to know it.

That is a distribution problem, not a difficulty problem. This library is an attempt
to fix the distribution.

## The twelve halls

| | Hall | What it holds |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 01 | **Body** | Sleep, food, movement, navigating healthcare, first aid |
| 02 | **Mind** | Learning, clear thinking, attention, emotion, mental health |
| 03 | **Money** | Cashflow, debt, tax, investing, scams and consumer rights |
| 04 | **Work** | Finding work, portfolios, interviews, rights, negotiation, self-employment |
| 05 | **People** | Listening, conflict and repair, friendship, love, boundaries, family |
| 06 | **Home** | Cooking, renting, repairs, admin, clothes and kit |
| 07 | **Civic** | Law and rights, how power works, media literacy, privacy, organising |
| 08 | **Systems** | Statistics, computing, AI literacy, evidence, systems thinking |
| 09 | **Craft** | Making things, writing, speaking, creative practice, tools |
| 10 | **Meaning** | Purpose, ethics, mortality, grief, rest and play |
| 11 | **Earth** | Supply chains, climate, growing food, weather, wilderness |
| 12 | **Passages** | Adulthood, moving out, first job, parenthood, caring, the end |

## What a module contains

Every one of the 63 modules follows the same contract, so a reader always knows where
to look:

- a one-line hook, and **one thing to do** before any reading
- **Why this matters** — including who it goes wrong for, and why it is not their fault
- **Core knowledge** — bolded claims in plain language, with numbers where they exist
- **Practices** — imperative, doable this week, with no money
- **Common traps** and **Signals you have it**
- **Common questions** — six to eight, written as the questions people actually
  arrive with rather than the ones that are tidy to answer
- **Myths worth killing** — false beliefs, including several that popular books and
  well-meaning advice get wrong
- **When it goes wrong** — failure modes with a route out; or **Where this differs by
  country** for the law-, money- and benefits-heavy modules
- most modules also carry a **worked example**, a **numbers worth knowing** table, or
  **word-for-word scripts** — and a tickable checklist
- **Go deeper** — free, public sources first
- around ten **self-check questions**, because retrieval is what makes knowledge stick

Anything jurisdiction-specific is marked with a country and a year. Anywhere a reader
could come to harm carries a `::: safety` callout with a named service and a number.

## Beyond the modules

- **[Glossary](data/glossary.json)** — 294 terms. If a word in this library feels like
  gatekeeping, it belongs here. Terms are underlined in the prose and link to their
  definition.
- **[Checklists](data/checklists.json)** — move-in day, money triage, digital hardening,
  the four documents, the day pack. Ticks persist; every list prints cleanly.
- **[Templates](data/templates.json)** — a disrepair report, a creditor hardship letter,
  a grievance, the pay rise conversation, a condolence message, the first hour after a
  scam. Placeholders are fillable in the page and the result copies to your clipboard.
- **[Reading list](data/reading.json)** — the sources behind the content, free ones
  first, each with an honest note including where a popular book overstates its case.
- **[Emergency directory](data/emergency.json)** — twelve situations, the first steps,
  and who to call. Precached, so it works with no connection.

## Principles

- **Assume nothing.** No prior study, no jargon, no gatekeeping.
- **Plain language.** If a sentence needs re-reading, that is our fault.
- **Practice over theory.** Every module names one thing to do this week.
- **Show the source.** Claims are signposted to free, public, authoritative material.
- **Name the limits.** Where a decision needs a doctor, lawyer or adviser, we say so.
- **No dark patterns.** No accounts, no adverts, no tracking, no upsell, no streak
  guilt. Progress lives in your browser and nowhere else.
- **Never assume resources.** No "ask your accountant", no "your parents can help".
- **Forkable by design.** Content is Markdown; structure is JSON.

## What this is not

Not professional advice, and not a substitute for a doctor, lawyer, debt adviser or
crisis line. Law, benefits and health guidance vary by country and change over time.
**In an emergency, use the emergency services where you live.**

## Run it locally

No build step, no dependencies, no package manager. HTML, CSS, vanilla JS, JSON and
Markdown.

```bash
git clone https://github.com/sobanan-breakthrough/library-of-alexandria.git
cd library-of-alexandria
python3 -m http.server 8000
```

Then open <http://localhost:8000>. A server is needed because the page `fetch`es the
curriculum and content files; opening `index.html` from disk is blocked by browsers.

## Repository layout

```
index.html                 the application shell
manifest.webmanifest       installable as an app
sw.js                      offline support; precaches the shell and emergency page
assets/css/styles.css      one stylesheet: tokens, four themes, no framework
assets/js/markdown.js      escape-first Markdown renderer (~200 lines)
assets/js/store.js         everything remembered, and nothing sent anywhere
assets/js/data.js          loading, indexing and search scoring
assets/js/ui.js            palette, preferences, sidebar, glossary decoration
assets/js/app.js           router and every view
data/curriculum.json       the spine: halls, modules, levels, times, tags, pathways
data/glossary.json         294 terms
data/selfcheck.json        315 questions
data/templates.json        26 letters, scripts and forms
data/checklists.json       16 checklists
data/reading.json          165 catalogued sources
data/emergency.json        12 emergency situations
content/<hall>/<mod>.md    one Markdown file per module
tools/validate.py          structural and editorial checks (CI runs this)
tools/build_index.py       regenerates CURRICULUM.md
tools/merge_sections.py    inserts new sections into existing modules
CURRICULUM.md              generated human-readable index
```

## How the platform works

- **`data/curriculum.json` is the spine.** Add a module entry and a Markdown file and
  the site picks it up — no code changes.
- **Hash routing**, so it works on any static host with no rewrites:
  `#/hall/body`, `#/module/body/sleep`, `#/path/leaving-home`, `#/glossary?t=APR`,
  `#/checklist/move-in-day`, `#/template/grievance`, `#/emergency`, `#/progress`.
- **Markdown is rendered in the browser** by `assets/js/markdown.js`, which escapes
  input *before* parsing, so content files can never inject HTML or script. It supports
  tables, task lists and `::: note | safety | example | script | numbers | jurisdiction
  | details` callouts.
- **Search** (`/` or `Cmd-K`) covers modules, sections, glossary, checklists,
  templates, resources, pathways and emergency situations. Scoring only allows mid-word
  matches for queries of five characters or more, so "rent" does not match "current".
  Each module carries **aliases** — the words people actually type, like "skint",
  "sacked", "hacked", "bailiffs" — so search finds the right module even when it never
  uses that word.
- **Glossary decoration** underlines the first appearance of each known term in a
  module and links it to the definition. Toggleable in reading preferences.
- **Reading preferences**: four themes (dark, light, sepia, high contrast), four text
  sizes, three line widths, four typefaces including a legibility face, plus toggles
  for glossary underlining and the page outline.
- **Everything is local.** Progress, bookmarks, notes, checklist ticks, self-check
  marks and preferences live in `localStorage`. No server, no account, no analytics,
  no outbound requests. You can export it all to a JSON file and import it elsewhere.
- **Offline.** A service worker precaches the shell, all six data files and the
  emergency directory; module Markdown is cached as you read it.
- **Keyboard**: `/` or `Cmd-K` search · `g` then `h/p/g/c/t/r/e` to jump ·
  `j`/`k` next and previous module · `m` mark complete · `b` bookmark · `t` cycle
  theme · `?` shortcut list.

## Validate before you commit

```bash
python3 tools/validate.py && python3 tools/build_index.py
```

`validate.py` checks all seven data files and their cross-references: that every module
has a content file, that internal links and related-module references resolve, that
required sections exist, that callout types are known and balanced, that glossary terms
are unique and linked, that templates and checklists point at real modules, and that
nothing is a stub. `--strict` treats warnings as failures. CI runs the same check on
every pull request.

## Translating and localising

The structure is deliberately separable from the prose:

1. Fork the repo.
2. Translate the Markdown in `content/`, keeping filenames identical.
3. Translate the `title`, `summary`, `tagline`, `description`, `oneThing` and `aliases`
   strings in `data/curriculum.json`, and the reference corpora in `data/`.
4. Replace the jurisdiction-specific sections and signposted services with local
   equivalents. This matters most in Money, Work, Home, Civic and Passages, and in
   `data/emergency.json`, where wrong numbers are actively dangerous.
5. Open a pull request, or publish your own edition. Both are welcome.

## Licence

- **Content** (`content/`, `data/`, `CURRICULUM.md`): [CC BY-SA 4.0](LICENSE-CONTENT) —
  copy it, adapt it, teach from it, print and sell an edition; keep it open and credit it.
- **Code** (`index.html`, `assets/`, `tools/`, `sw.js`): [MIT](LICENSE).

Third-party works listed in "Go deeper" and the reading list remain the property of
their authors; they are references, not reproductions.