- The attribution rail that closes every TaylorURL site.
-
-
- One React component, imported by every project,
- so changing the bar changes every site at once.
-
-
- Published for reading. Proprietary — see LICENSE.md. Outside contributions are not accepted.
-
+
The "Built by TaylorURL" footer bar on TaylorURL sites, as a React component.
-
-
-
-## Why it is a package
+Split Rail is the thin bar at the very bottom of a TaylorURL site's footer. On the left it says "Built by TaylorURL" and links to [taylorurl.com](https://www.taylorurl.com). On the right it has a Status link to the [status page](https://www.taylorurl.com/status), the site's version and the year.
-A rail each project carries its own copy of is a rail nobody can change. Copies
-drift in path, in length and in markup, and the bar that is supposed to be one
-bar becomes as many bars as there are sites. Here it is one file with one
-version, and a site takes a change by moving the dependency.
+Each site installs it as a dependency instead of keeping its own copy, so a change here reaches every site when it bumps the version.
-
-
-
-
It paints nothing
-
No ground and no ink of its own. Every tone is mixed from the host's currentColor and the background stays transparent, so one rail lands correctly on a white brochure footer and a near-black dashboard alike.
-
-
-
It builds nowhere
-
Plain React.createElement, no JSX and no build step, so Vite, Create React App and Next.js all consume the published source as it stands.
-
-
-
+## What it does
-
+- Picks up its colors from the footer it sits in, so it works on light and dark footers
+- Shows the version you pass in, and the current year
+- Gives the links bigger tap targets on touch screens
+- Ships as plain JavaScript with no JSX, so it works in Vite, Create React App and Next.js without extra setup
+- Has no dependencies apart from React 17 or later
## Install
@@ -47,86 +25,39 @@ version, and a site takes a change by moving the dependency.
npm install github:TaylorURL/split-rail#v2026.36.0
```
-Pin the tag. Every consuming site does, which is what makes a new rail something a
-site takes by moving its dependency rather than something that arrives on the next
-install.
+Pin a tag, so a site only picks up a new version of the bar when you move it.
-React 17 or later is a peer dependency; the package brings nothing else with it.
+## Usage
-## Use
-
-Mount it inside the footer element, not beside it.
+Put it inside the footer element, not after it. It takes its colors from its parent, so outside the footer it picks up the page background instead.
```jsx
import SplitRail from '@taylorurl/split-rail'
```
-| Prop | Type | Does |
-| :-------- | :------- | :----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
-| `version` | `string` | The build string the project already publishes. Left off, the rail shows no version. |
-| `year` | `number` | The year a server render used, so a page built either side of midnight agrees with itself. |
-
-The rail takes its colours from the element above it, which is why its place is
-inside the footer. At the app root it inherits the page body instead and reads
-as a pale strip under a dark footer.
-
-`--tu-accent` is the one colour a host can retarget, for a palette whose hover
-would otherwise fight the page.
-
-## Shipping plain JavaScript
+| Prop | Type | What it does |
+| :-------- | :------- | :------------------------------------------------ |
+| `version` | `string` | The build version to show. Leave it off for none. |
+| `year` | `number` | Overrides the year. You'll rarely need it. |
-`src/index.js` calls `React.createElement` rather than using JSX. Two of the
-consuming sites build with `react-scripts`, which does not transpile JSX inside
-`node_modules`, so a JSX source file would fail their builds.
+To change the hover color of the links, set the `--tu-accent` CSS variable.
-## Checking a change
-
-`test/render.mjs` renders the component to static markup and asserts each marker
-the stack checklist's rail probe reads the bar by, alongside the version, year
-and colour behaviour the component promises. It names every case it ran and
-exits non-zero on a failure.
+## Working on it
```bash
npm install
npm test
-```
-
-`react` and `react-dom` are development dependencies, so the render has
-something to render with. Neither reaches a consuming site: that takes React
-from its own tree, through the peer dependency.
-
-Formatting and lint run over the whole tree:
-
-```bash
-npm run format:check
npm run lint
+npm run format:check
```
-CI runs all three on every pull request, and `check` is the required context on
-both branches.
-
-## Project structure
-
-```
-split-rail/
-├── src/index.js The component, its stylesheet, and the two links it carries
-├── test/render.mjs The markup assertions a change has to keep passing
-├── eslint.config.js The lint rules; .prettierrc holds the formatting ones
-├── .github/workflows/ CI (the required `check` context) and the attribution gate
-└── package.json Exports src/index.js directly; React is a peer dependency
-```
+`npm test` renders the component to HTML and checks the markup.
## License
-Copyright (c) 2026 TaylorURL LLC. All rights reserved. See [LICENSE.md](LICENSE.md).
-
-
-
-
- One bar, one version, every site.
-
+Proprietary. All rights reserved. See [LICENSE.md](LICENSE.md).
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 7d3799a..bf9ca0d 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
{
"name": "@taylorurl/split-rail",
"version": "2026.38.0",
- "description": "The attribution rail that closes every TaylorURL site.",
+ "description": "Footer credit bar for TaylorURL sites, as a React component",
"type": "module",
"main": "./src/index.js",
"module": "./src/index.js",
- 