# Product Context — PEDW FrontEnd

## Primary user workflows

1. **Public discovery**
    - Search planning cases (basic, advanced, address, DNS).
    - Open case summary pages and review documents/history.

2. Authenticated portal (`/myportal/**`)
    - Sign in via magic-link email.
    - View dashboards/worklists (my cases, watched cases, awaiting submission, representations).
    - Start or continue appeal/representation submission flows.

3. **Role-shaped behavior**
    - General users can create appeals and representations.
    - LPA users get authority-scoped views and representation actions; raise-appeal behavior is restricted.

## Core domain concepts

- **Case / Incident**: core planning entity shown in search, detail, and portal journeys.
- **Appeal type**: controls collection/field behavior and some UI logic.
- **Representation window**: date-gated period controlling whether representation actions are available.
- **Watched case / email notifications**: user subscriptions to case changes.
- **DNS**: Developments of National Significance-specific journey and pages.

## Business logic patterns visible in code

- Case summary UI varies by appeal type and case attributes.
- Representation actions are conditionally shown by appeal type, role, and date windows.
- Representation participation now appears to form one broader business decision model: whether a participant can engage in representation or consultation activity for a case at that point in the process.
- Locale-sensitive behavior affects links, routes, labels, and email template choice.
- New-case-reference notifications include preferred-language checks before template selection.

## Current representation participation state

- Technical discovery/documentation for Representation Participation Availability is complete.
- The current behaviour is best understood as a coherent participation-availability policy with layered appeal-type, process-type, participant-type, consultation, and date-window exceptions.
- Business validation is still required before any further representation-policy adoption, expansion, or behavioural change work.
- Reference documents:
    - `docs/representation-participation-availability.md`
    - `docs/representation-participation-business-review.md`

## Likely next discovery candidate

- Case Lifecycle / Status Decision Model Discovery
    - expected focus: case progress, stages, statuses, closed states, dashboard grouping, and lifecycle messaging
    - should be treated as discovery-only pending review of the new representation participation documentation

## Important user-facing behaviors

- Welsh route aliases are mapped in `next.config.js` and must remain in sync with page behavior.
- Breadcrumb/back-navigation behavior is actively maintained across search -> case -> portal routes.
- Document visibility/download flows are central to case transparency and must remain stable.