The first version of Notes behaved like a blog. It had posts, dates, categories, and a feed.
That was technically fine, but it was not the right product. YIQILAI.TECH needs Notes to act more like an operating memory: principles, product judgments, build records, engineering practices, growth lessons, and cases.
The old problem
The old categories were borrowed from example content. They described a source, not a purpose.
That made the archive hard to read. A visitor could see that a post was “featured,” but not whether it was about product thinking, engineering practice, or a real project lesson.
The new shape
The new system uses four fixed categories:
- Principles
- Product & Design
- Engineering
- Business
The order matters. It moves from worldview to product and experience judgment, then into engineering and build practice, and finally into commercialization, customer cases, and real-world transformation value.
The implementation rule
The category system should be predictable from the source tree. Notes live as MDX files. Category metadata lives in one data module. Pages consume that structure instead of inventing their own labels.
That keeps the system boring in the right way.
Why this matters
Content systems fail when they become dumping grounds. A small archive with strong categories is more useful than a large archive where every article asks the reader to guess why it exists.
Related thinking
Continue through the same thinking system.