Correspondance

I’m pleased to announce the release of Retraceur 4.0.0, codenamed Correspondance.

This release marks the culmination of a marathon that began in mid-March with a clear objective: giving Retraceur the ability to discover and keep its resources up to date through two essential APIs, Discovery and Update.

After several months of development, three beta releases, yesterday’s release candidate, numerous fixes, and significantly expanded documentation, the foundations are now in place to make Retraceur easier to discover, understand, and adopt.

Correspondance opens a new chapter for the project: software capable of communicating with a distributed network of resources while remaining faithful to its vision of a more open Web—freer, simpler, and more respectful of everyone’s independence.

Why « Correspondance »?

I chose Correspondance because it perfectly captures what Retraceur 4.0.0 brings.

A correspondance is first and foremost a transfer during a journey. You leave one route to continue on another. It isn’t the destination itself, but it makes the journey possible. That’s exactly the role of this release. Rather than adding countless new features, it creates the conditions that will allow Retraceur to evolve sustainably.

The word also carries another meaning: correspondence between people. This release establishes a new dialogue between Retraceur and the resources around it. Blocks, plugins, and soon themes and translations are no longer simply installed—they can now be discovered, updated, and connected to a site through standardized exchanges.

Ultimately, this Correspondance is about connecting a website with the people who help it evolve, while leaving everyone free to choose their own path.

Why the Billard Square market?

Since the first beta, every Retraceur 4.0.0 announcement has been illustrated with a photograph of the vegetable market on Place Billard in Chartres, France. That choice was anything but accidental.

A market is not a store. It doesn’t produce what it offers—it brings together independent producers in a shared place. Each one keeps its own identity, specialties, and freedom, while visitors remain free to compare, discover, and choose what suits them best.

That is precisely the philosophy behind Retraceur’s new APIs. The project does not aim to become a centralized catalog or an unavoidable platform. Instead, it provides an open crossroads where resources published on different code forges can be discovered easily, without questioning their origin or their independence.

The Billard Square market therefore represents my vision of an open crossroads: a place where people come to discover resources, not a place designed to promote a single vendor.

Discover before updating

The two flagship features of Retraceur 4.0.0 are the Discovery and Update APIs. They address a simple need: helping a website find relevant resources and then keeping them up to date.

The first step is naturally discovery. The Discovery API allows users to search directly from the administration interface for blocks and plugins compatible with Retraceur. Its goal is simple: to provide a gateway to freely published resources.

That freedom comes with greater responsibility:

• for users, who must make informed choices, just as they do when browsing the Web;
• for developers, who are responsible for the security, maintenance, and quality of what they publish.

Once a resource has been installed, the Update API takes over. It regularly checks whether a new version is available and lets users install it just as easily as Retraceur’s built-in updates.

By clearly separating these two responsibilities—discovering and keeping up to date—Retraceur lays the foundations of a simple, open, and sustainable infrastructure for all of its resources.

What’s next?

This first step focuses on blocks and plugins because they are currently the resources that most directly extend the Retraceur experience.

The next milestone is already clear. From the very beginning, the Discovery and Update APIs have been designed to progressively support themes and translations. The objective remains unchanged: to provide a consistent way to discover, install, and maintain every resource that makes up a Retraceur site, without imposing a particular forge, a centralized catalog, or giving preference to a single provider.

Original photograph by PtrQs (CC BY-SA 4.0), remixed with the assistance of artificial intelligence and redistributed under the same license.