UK chatbot beta launch: blog post, homepage CTA, featured tools

[vahid-ahmadi]

One PR consolidating the UK AI chatbot launch work (supersedes #1070 and #1072).

Blog post — "AI chatbot for policymaking" (beta)

• New post at app/src/data/posts/articles/uk-chat-cant-make-up-numbers.md + cover image, dated 2026-06-27.
• Framed as a beta launch; short noun-phrase section/subsection headings; six-tools figure (centred, grouped) and architecture diagram; numbered architecture/loop steps; key phrases bolded.
• Citations deep-linked to exact sentences (AI Playbook, Wikipedia, POST, NAO).
• posts.json: title "AI chatbot for policymaking", beta subtitle, date 27 Jun.

Homepage

• HeroCTA: second button "Try the AI chatbot" (navy, distinct from teal "Enter PolicyEngine") → PolicyEngine UK Chat.
• FeaturedResearchBanner: four cards refreshed to the latest UK tools, led by UK CliffWatch tool.
• HomeBlogPreview: excludes the chatbot launch post from "Expert policy analysis" (it's a product announcement, not policy analysis).

Apps

• Renamed UK CliffWatch → "UK CliffWatch tool" in apps.json and the home banner. (The CliffWatch apps.json entry itself already merged via Add UK CliffWatch to the apps registry #1071.)

Fixes

• MarkdownFormatter: restore ordered/unordered list markers that Tailwind preflight reset (numbered steps now show their numbers).

Note: the POST citation deep-link is best-effort — that page blocks automated fetching, so the exact-sentence highlight is unverified (falls back to page top if it doesn't match).

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[vercel]

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
policyengine-app-v2	Ready	Preview	Jul 30, 2026 12:39pm
policyengine-calculator	Ready	Preview	Jul 30, 2026 12:39pm
policyengine-calculator-next	Ready	Preview	Jul 30, 2026 12:39pm
policyengine-website	Ready	Preview	Jul 30, 2026 12:39pm

[anth-volk]

@vahid-ahmadi a couple minor follow-ups:

• I'd add a brief segment on the PolicyBench description indicating that it was for the US
• Change "When an answer looks wrong..." to "If an answer..."

[vahid-ahmadi]

@anth-volk both done in 38ab5b1:

• PolicyBench is US-based — the "Why this needs more than a language model" section now opens by describing PolicyBench as "an evaluation built on the US tax and benefit system," and closes with a bridge sentence so the US figures don't read as out of place in a UK launch post: "The benchmark covers US policy, but the lesson carries directly to the UK: the harder the computation, the less a language model can be trusted to do it unaided."
• "When" → "If" — the feedback CTA now reads "If an answer looks wrong, incomplete, or confusing, use the Report issue button…"

[MaxGhenis]

CI is green and I don't see code-correctness blockers (agent-assisted review). The post renders (website posts.json/authors.json/articles are symlinks to the app-side files this PR edits), both bylines resolve, all four banner links return 200 on prod, and the PolicyBench figures match the live post (GPT-5.5 first at 80.3% exact, US-based, income-tax-before-credits hardest). HeroCTA uses design tokens, is UK-gated, and opens in a new tab safely.

Main thing: this PR is the launch, not a staged setup. On merge + deploy, three things go live immediately with no flag or date gate — the "Try the AI chatbot" button on the UK homepage, the refreshed featured banner, and the post at /uk/research/introducing-policyengine-uk-chat (also in the /uk/research list and sitemap). So we shouldn't merge until we want it public.

Decisions to make first:

1. The CTA and the post both point at https://policyengine-uk-chat.vercel.app/. policyengine.org/uk/chat is a 404 — no productionized route yet. The alias works, but linking the public homepage and a launch post to a bare *.vercel.app is off-brand, skips our analytics/SEO, and cuts against our multizone convention. I'd rather stand up /uk/chat as a multizone (appZoneRoutes.ts) or a custom domain first; if we ship the vercel.app link for beta, let's do it knowingly. Either way, make CHAT_URL an env var or internal path like CALCULATOR_URL so moving it isn't a code change.
2. The cover image is a dark-mode screenshot; the earlier ask was light-mode and the inline diagram is light. Real product screenshot is the right call — just recapture it light to fit the research surface.
3. Post date is 2026-06-30, already a week old. No future-date gate, so it publishes on merge but sorts below anything dated later. Set it to the actual launch day at merge.

Copy: drop "only" in "matched PolicyEngine exactly on only 80.3%" — the 47.1%/53.3% hardest-case numbers already make the point. "PolicyEngine is excited to announce" is the one line leaning promotional against our neutral tone; fine for a launch, but "PolicyEngine has launched" is tighter.

Non-blocking: HomeBlogPreview excludes the post via a hardcoded slug (could key off a tag); branch is 16 behind main, worth updating before merge. Also the title and date changed after the last review round, so the current head hasn't had a sign-off from that reviewer.

[vahid-ahmadi]

@MaxGhenis thanks for the review — addressed in cc4e9dff and bf691b8d:

• Production URL: the homepage CTA now defaults to the internal /uk/chat path, with an optional NEXT_PUBLIC_CHAT_URL override. Added /uk/chat to appZoneRoutes.ts, proxying to the chat deployment at its matching base path.
• Route auditing: registered UK Chat as a narrowly scoped shell-brand exemption because it is an immersive app with its own PolicyEngine-branded sidebar. It remains covered by the liveness audit, and the destination-fallback shell audit passes.
• Cover image: replaced the dark-mode cover with a real light-mode browser capture of the product.
• Launch date: updated the post date to 30 July 2026.
• Copy: changed the opening to “PolicyEngine has launched” and removed “only” before the 80.3% PolicyBench result.
• Homepage filtering: replaced the hardcoded post-slug exclusion with a semantic product tag and added its required display label.
• Branch freshness: merged current main into the PR branch.
• Changelog: added the /uk/chat beta launch entry.

Local validation included website tests (115/115), lint, typecheck, Markdown drift checks, route-audit unit tests, live destination-fallback shell auditing, tracking audit, and a production website build.

The remaining non-code item is launch approval/reviewer sign-off, since merging publishes the homepage CTA, refreshed banner, and launch article immediately.