Public-facing request portal

[scottconverse]

Update 2026-04-23 — a minimal public portal shipped in v1.2.0.

The original post in this thread said "v1 is internal-only, a public submission portal is not in the current spec scope and would be Phase 3+ at earliest." That framing is now partially out of date.

What actually shipped in v1.2.0 (T5D, 2026-04-23): an install-time PORTAL_MODE switch with exactly three public surfaces when enabled. Nothing more.

Private mode (default, unchanged from v1.1.0):

• Staff-only posture
• The login screen is the only externally reachable page
• /auth/register returns 404
• UserRole.PUBLIC is not assignable

Public mode (new, opt-in via PORTAL_MODE=public):

• Public landing page at /
• Resident-registration path at /register (self-service account creation for UserRole.PUBLIC only)
• Authenticated records-request submission form at /public/submit, posted to POST /public/requests
• Mode is discoverable via unauthenticated GET /config/portal-mode so the frontend can branch its routing at boot
• Staff roles (ADMIN, STAFF, REVIEWER, READ_ONLY, LIAISON) get 403 on POST /public/requests — they continue to use the existing /requests/ workflow

Deliberately still out of scope (Scott-locked in T5D):

• Anonymous walk-up submission — every public submission requires a logged-in resident account. records_requests.created_by stays NOT NULL.
• A full resident dashboard
• Published-records search
• A track-my-request suite

The three bullets above are what "public portal" means in v1.2.0. Broader public functionality is Phase 3+ and remains unscheduled.

Operator considerations from the earlier thread remain live:

• Rate limiting on the public submit endpoint — follow-up slice
• CAPTCHA / bot protection — follow-up slice
• Requester identity verification (varies by state) — follow-up slice, almost certainly state-by-state config
• Integration with the existing request workflow — ✅ done; public submissions land in the same records_requests table and follow the same lifecycle

If your city would prioritize any of the still-out-of-scope items over connector-framework Phase 3 work, please say so here.

Canonical narrative for what shipped: CHANGELOG T5D entry · UNIFIED-SPEC §8.9 · v1.2.0 release notes.