Internal Link Graph Architect

Use this skill after information-architecture-seo has defined page roles and canonical policy.

Read references/link-graph-rules.md before producing a full graph.

Owns

• intentional internal link graph;
• brief-to-longform and longform-to-brief links;
• breadcrumbs;
• topic, project, author, community, and source-trail links;
• anchor intent;
• orphan-page checks;
• overlink and duplicate-intent risk checks.

Does Not Own

• canonical and hreflang policy;
• final URL architecture;
• external backlink placement;
• hidden links;
• visual UI layout;
• schema implementation.

Workflow

1. Read url-map.yaml, page roles, canonical model, language groups, and content model.
2. Identify required structural links: breadcrumbs, brief-longform pairs, topic/project/author/entity links.
3. Add source-trail links only when they are visible and useful to users.
4. Assign link_type, anchor_intent, user_reason, seo_reason, and risk.
5. Flag orphan pages, circular links without purpose, irrelevant exact-match anchors, and duplicated story-body routes.
6. Produce internal-link-graph.yaml using assets/internal-link-graph.template.yaml.
7. Hand off schema/head implications to technical-seo-schema-engineer and rendered navigation checks to ui-ux-llm-product-architect.

Link Rules

• Every link must have a user reason.
• A short brief should link to its one longform article when a longform exists.
• A longform article should link back to its brief when the brief remains a standalone news surface.
• Topic pages organize related pages with summaries; they do not duplicate story bodies.
• Author and project links support trust and entity understanding.
• Breadcrumbs clarify hierarchy; they are not keyword stuffing.
• Related links should be sparse and defensible.
• External authority placement is out of scope.

Safety And Privacy Boundaries

• Do not recommend hidden links, cloaked links, injected footers, irrelevant exact-match anchors, or link stuffing.
• Do not link public pages to admin, private API, private analytics, raw IP logs, staging URLs, secret files, or unpublished drafts.
• Do not create extra public story pages to increase link count.
• Do not weaken UX or accessibility for SEO anchors.

Validation

Before marking work complete:

• every link has source URL, target URL, type, anchor intent, user reason, SEO reason, and risk;
• every page expected to be discoverable has at least one logical incoming link;
• brief and longform pages are paired without creating extra story bodies;
• topic/project/author links have entity or navigation purpose;
• hidden or irrelevant link recommendations are absent.

Validate skill edits with:

python3 <codex-skills-dir>/senior-skill-architect/scripts/lint_production_skill.py ./skills/internal-link-graph-architect
python3 ./plans/seo-llm-skill-cluster/scripts/lint_skill_cluster.py .

Forward tests live in evals.json.

Output Shape

Return:

1. Link graph summary.
2. Required structural links.
3. Optional related links.
4. Orphan/overlink risks.
5. Handoff notes for technical SEO/schema and UX.