fix: remove content_category entrypoint heuristic that breaks re-deploys

[zackverham]

Summary

Fixes #4110 — Re-deploying static HTML content fails with Connect error 110: "You cannot change the categorization of content once deployed."

Root cause

The contentCategoryField heuristic added in #4048 sets content_category: "site" in the deployment manifest whenever the entrypoint path starts with _site/ or _book/. This causes a regression for any content originally deployed without content_category (e.g., by an older Publisher version using the Go bundler, or by the TS bundler before #4048). Connect locks content_category after first deploy and rejects any change with error 110.

Investigation

We tested content_category: "site" against both standard Connect and Connect Cloud:

Standard Connect — deployed identical multi-page Quarto site bundles (including revealjs presentations) with and without content_category: "site":

• Sub-page navigation: Works identically with and without content_category
• Revealjs rendering: Works identically with and without content_category
• Re-deploy with changed category: Reproduces error 110 as reported

Connect Cloud — deployed a multi-page Quarto site (including revealjs) without content_category: "site":

• Sub-page navigation and revealjs rendering work correctly

content_category: "site" has no observable effect on content serving behavior for app_mode: "static" on either platform.

Fix

• Removed the contentCategoryField entrypoint-path heuristic from manifestFromConfig.ts
• The _site.yml / _bookdown.yml file detection in manifest.ts (carried over from the original Go implementation) is preserved — this only triggers when those config files are actually present in the bundle

Test plan

• Unit tests updated in manifestFromConfig.test.ts — confirms content_category is not set from entrypoint path
• Integration test updated in bundler.test.ts — confirms bundle for _site/ entrypoint does not include content_category
• manifest.test.ts unchanged — _site.yml/_bookdown.yml detection still works
• All 93 bundler tests pass
• Lint passes
• Manual testing: deployed multi-page Quarto sites (with revealjs) to Connect and Connect Cloud without content_category — all pages serve correctly

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Code Review Complete

• Read changed files and understand the changes
• Review code quality and correctness
• Check test coverage
• Provide review feedback

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Review Summary

Verdict: Approve ✅

This is a well-executed fix for a real regression. The PR correctly removes the problematic contentCategoryField heuristic while preserving the existing file-based detection mechanism.

What Changed

1. manifestFromConfig.ts: Removed the contentCategoryField function and its invocation. This function set content_category: "site" based on entrypoint paths starting with _site/ or _book/ (-25 lines)

2. manifestFromConfig.test.ts: Consolidated 6 test cases into 1 that verifies content_category is NOT set from entrypoint path (-49 lines)

3. bundler.test.ts: Updated integration test to verify the bundle manifest doesn't include content_category from path detection (-26 lines)

Why This Fix Is Correct

The root cause analysis in the PR description is accurate:

• Connect locks content_category after first deploy and rejects changes with error 110
• The heuristic added in Fix Quarto website rendering and deployment for mixed-format projects #4048 could set content_category: "site" on re-deploys for content that was originally deployed without it
• Testing confirmed content_category: "site" has no observable effect on app_mode: "static" content serving

Important Preservation

The PR correctly preserves the existing detection in manifest.ts:25-27:

if (KNOWN_SITE_CONFIG_FILES.includes(path.toLowerCase())) {
  manifest.metadata.content_category = "site";
}

This only triggers when _site.yml, _site.yaml, _bookdown.yml, or _bookdown.yaml config files are actually present in the bundle, which is the correct behavior.

Test Coverage

• All 1637 unit tests pass (97 test files)
• Test changes appropriately verify the new behavior (content_category NOT set from path)
• The remaining test in manifest.test.ts continues to verify file-based detection works

Minor Observations

No issues found. The code removal is clean and focused. The test changes correctly flip from asserting toBe("site") to toBeUndefined().

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