Static site audit: mobile layout, data consistency, Showcase metadata, and missing preview assets

[DavidLi03]

Summary

The current RoboIndex static site build is functional and suitable for internal preview, but it does not yet feel fully
production-ready. The main engineering flow works: the site builds successfully, static export is generated, primary
routes return 200, and the dashboard can load data from the generated static JSON API.

However, I found several issues that should be addressed before treating the page as complete: mobile layout overflow,
copy/data mismatch, missing GitHub metadata in the Showcase page, data quality inconsistencies, and missing preview assets
referenced by the content data.

Estimated completion level: roughly 75%-80%.

Validation Performed

Tested against the local static export served from out/.

Build and preview status:

• npm run build completed successfully.
• Static export was generated into out/.
• Local preview server served the site successfully.

Verified routes:

• /
• /papers/
• /dashboard/
• /showcase/
• /guides/
• /ral-skill/
• /contribute/
• /papers/iplanner-isaaclab/

Verified static API endpoints:

• /api/stats.json
• /api/papers.json
• /visitor-count.json

Observed generated data:

• Total papers: 626
• Papers with GitHub repo: 624
• Venue count: RA-L: 626

Dashboard client-side rendering was also checked with headless Chrome. It successfully loaded API data and rendered the
stats and charts instead of remaining in a loading state.

Issues Found

1. Mobile layout overflow / clipping

At a narrow mobile viewport, around 390px width, the homepage and header still show layout issues.

Observed problems:

• Header navigation has too many items for the available width.
• Some navigation content is clipped or difficult to use on mobile.
• The homepage stats line, especially visitor-count-related text, can be truncated.

Suggested fix:

• Add a mobile navigation pattern, such as a collapsible menu.
• Let homepage stats wrap into multiple rows on small screens.
• Test common widths such as 390px, 430px, and 768px.

2. Copy and data are inconsistent

The current generated data does not fully match the site copy.

Examples:

• The build has 626 total papers and 624 papers with GitHub repos.
• The /papers/ page says 626 open-source RA-L papers with GitHub repos, which is inaccurate because only 624 entries
  have repos.
• The README still mentions 627 papers.
• The page copy indicates 2020-2026, but the generated data contains earlier years such as 2006, 2007, 2008,
  2010, 2016, 2018, and 2019.

Suggested fix:

• Clarify the difference between “total indexed papers” and “open-source papers with GitHub repos”.
• Sync README, page copy, and generated data counts.
• Either filter out pre-2020 records or update the displayed year range to match the data.

3. Showcase GitHub metadata is not connected

The Showcase page appears to support GitHub metadata such as:

• stars
• language
• license
• recently active
• total stars
• sorting by most stars
• sorting by recently active

However, data/repos.json is missing locally, and the generated Showcase payload contains an empty repoMeta object.

Impact:

• Stars, language, and activity metadata do not appear.
• “Most stars” and “Recently active” sorting effectively lose their meaning.
• The Showcase page can still render cards, but the GitHub-enhanced experience is incomplete.

Suggested fix:

• Add or document the pipeline for generating data/repos.json.
• If GitHub metadata is not required for the first release, hide or disable the stars/activity sorting options until the
  data is available.
• Consider adding a build-time warning when data/repos.json is missing.

4. Data quality needs cleanup

The current data contains signs of automated scraping artifacts and inconsistent normalization.

Examples:

• Some titles look like repository names rather than paper titles.
• Some years appear outside the advertised site scope.
• Tags include duplicates or inconsistent casing, such as:
  • SLAM / slam
  • LiDAR / lidar
  • MPC / mpc
  • 3D-reconstruction / 3d-reconstruction
• Some tags look misspelled, for example:
  • segmentatin
  • paralelism
  • autonomus-driving

Suggested fix:

• Normalize all tags to lowercase kebab-case.
• Merge case variants and obvious duplicates.
• Add validation for accepted year ranges.
• Manually review prominent or recently added paper titles.
• Add a validation step after the paper-fetch script.

5. Missing preview assets

Some content files reference preview assets that do not exist in public/ or the generated out/ directory.

Referenced assets include:

• /paper-previews/gamma.png
• /paper-previews/gamma.mp4
• /paper-previews/rebot.png
• /paper-previews/rebot.mp4

Direct access to those paths returns 404.

Current impact:

• These fields do not appear to be rendered by the current Showcase/detail components, so this is not immediately visible
  in the UI.
• However, if preview images or videos are enabled later, these records will produce broken assets.

Suggested fix:

• Add the missing preview files, or remove the unavailable preview_image / preview_video fields.
• Add a build-time check to verify local preview asset references.

Suggested Priority

1. Fix mobile layout overflow in the header and homepage stats.
2. Sync page copy, README counts, and generated data counts.
3. Decide whether the site scope is really 2020-2026; then filter or update copy accordingly.
4. Connect or hide Showcase GitHub metadata features.
5. Normalize tags and clean obvious data-quality issues.
6. Add checks for missing preview assets.