v0.8.69: Make codewhale.net feel like a mature product site

[Hmbown]

Why this matters

The website should stop reading like a project bulletin plus compact docs page. CodeWhale needs a mature product surface: polished, trustworthy, well-structured, and clear enough that new users, serious adopters, contributors, and partners understand what the project is without digging through repository docs.

The goal is presentation quality and information architecture: product hierarchy, trust surfaces, documentation depth, community proof, and a homepage that feels like it belongs to a serious developer tool.

Current behavior

• The primary nav is a short set of pages: Install, Docs, Activity, Roadmap, FAQ, Contribute (web/components/nav.tsx:9).
• The homepage mixes product intro, live repo activity, release credits, contributor philosophy, and install guidance in one long page (web/app/[locale]/page.tsx:464).
• /docs is one long route with local anchors instead of a full support/docs architecture.
• Important product and trust material already exists in README.md, docs/, release notes, and install/mirror docs, but the website does not present it like a serious product front door.

Desired behavior

1. Redesign codewhale.net around a product-led IA: product, install, docs, trust/security, community, roadmap, contact/support, and provenance.
2. Make the first viewport feel like a mature developer-tool product, with clear CTAs such as Install, Docs, and GitHub.
3. Promote trust signals: open-source license, security model, local-first behavior, official site/source provenance, release/install verification, provider neutrality, and support expectations.
4. Keep multilingual community visible as proof and belonging, but move it into a deliberate community surface instead of letting raw activity or release credits dominate the product story.
5. Turn /docs into a structured product-support experience rather than a single summary page.

Acceptance criteria

• A proposed or implemented site map shows the target product, docs, trust, community, roadmap, contact/support, and provenance surfaces.
• Homepage design and copy feel polished, current, and product-grade without overclaiming.
• Navigation/footer include appropriate trust, contact/support, docs, provenance, GitHub, and community links.
• /docs has structured topic navigation for install, usage, config, providers/models, tools, sub-agents, MCP, skills, hooks, safety, troubleshooting, and contribution paths.
• Community and multilingual content remain visible but no longer crowd out the product hierarchy.
• Existing routes continue to resolve or redirect.
• The site can be verified with cd web && npm run lint && npm run test && npm run build.

Related

• v0.8.69: Add a public Runtime API and integrations page to codewhale.net #3419 should feed the runtime/integrations product surface.
• v0.8.69: Add official-site and mirror provenance copy to codewhale.net #3421 should feed trust/provenance and mirror copy.
• v0.8.69: Remove stale website references to retired sub-agent lifecycle tools #3414 and v0.8.69: Add a website fact-drift gate for version, providers, and tool inventory #3415 keep the product site from presenting stale facts.
• v0.8.59: Define README + website localization matrix, source text, and drift checks #3090, v0.8.59: Bring the website to parity with existing Japanese and Vietnamese README locales #3091, v0.8.59: Add Russian README and website localization with Cyrillic QA #3092, v0.8.59: Add next-wave README and website locales for Korean, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese #3093 track website/README localization expansion and should feed the multilingual plan rather than be duplicated here.