feat(files): a publication window on the file, so an attachment needs no object

[rubenvdlinde]

Why

Apps grew their own document object to hold a publication window over an attached file. Measuring opencatalogi's, every other property it carries already has a home:

document property	where it already lives
filename, mimeType	the file
description	File.description
title	the filename, or a label
publication, organization	the object the file hangs from
summary	fold into description
publicationDate / depublicationDate	nowhere

The window was the only real gap. publishFile() is a boolean: it creates a public share or it does not. So an attachment could not be depublished on a date independently of the record it belongs to, which is exactly what a WOO bijlage needs, and that alone forced a whole object type into existence.

The second reason is the stronger one. ContentSearchHandler::resolveOwningObject() already resolves a file chunk to its owning object through FileMapper::findOwningObjectUuid(), and openregister_chunks already carries source_type='file' rows. So a keyword hit inside a file attached to a publication resolves straight to the publication. The schema widening in opencatalogi #1391 exists only because the attachment is a separate object living outside the catalog's schema scope. Files attached to publications would have made that class of bug impossible.

The rule

The window is a method rather than an inline comparison because each null in it means something different, and treating them alike is the mistake it exists to prevent:

• No publication date means never published. It does not fall back to the creation time.
• A future publication date means not yet, which is the point of being able to set one.
• No depublication date means no end date, not an end date in the past.

Start inclusive, end exclusive, so a zero-length window publishes nothing. An inverted window publishes nothing either, rather than reading as published because the start has passed.

A depublication date is written onto the public share's expiration, which Nextcloud already honours. An OpenRegister-side flag alone would leave a public URL that still serves the file, and a URL that still works is not a depublication.

Two repairs found on the way

formatFile() reported the creation time under published. Every file that had ever existed therefore looked published, and "not published" was unrepresentable. The creation time is kept, under created, where it is true.

FileMapper declared @phpstan-type File describing a filecache ROW, named after the entity the mapper maps. That alias shadowed the entity in every docblock in the file, so a method annotated @return File read as an array shape. It is why the phpstan baseline carried an entry for each accessor, and why adding one method made an unrelated ignore count wrong. Renaming it to FilecacheRow and naming the entity in the generic removed 12 baseline entries. Full-tree phpstan is clean.

Verification

Not only in tests. On the dev instance:

• the migration applies, reports what it added, and is a no-op on re-run
• all four window states behave correctly round-tripped through the database, not just in memory, which is what proves the addType hydration rather than assuming it
• 11 unit tests pin the rule, including both boundaries, the inverted window, and a depublication date with no publication date
• the neighbouring suites: 1590 tests in tests/Unit/Db, and 1373 across every File-related test, green

phpcs, phpmd, psalm and phpstan clean on every changed file.

What this does not do

It does not retire any app's document schema. That is per-app work with its own migration and its own repointing, and it should follow this rather than ride along with it. Task 6 of the change records it, including reverting #1391's widening once nothing needs it.

[github-actions]

Quality Report — ConductionNL/openregister @ c3da374

Check	PHP	Vue	Security	License	Tests
lint	✅
phpcs	✅
phpmd	✅
psalm	✅
phpstan	✅
phpmetrics	✅
eslint		✅
stylelint		✅
build		✅
check-specs		✅
test-l10n		✅
test-l10n-parity		✅
format		✅
check-schema-l10n		✅
check-l10n-js		✅
composer			✅	✅ 174/174
npm			✅	✅ 543/543
app:check-code	⏭️
info.xml	✅
REUSE	❌
PHPUnit					✅
Newman					✅
Playwright					⏭️ deferred — runs on the promotion into beta/main, not on a pull request into development
Hydra gates					✅

---

Quality workflow — 2026-09-03 05:26 UTC

Download the full PDF report from the workflow artifacts.

[github-actions]

Quality Report — ConductionNL/openregister @ 108a0fe

Check	PHP	Vue	Security	License	Tests
lint	✅
phpcs	✅
phpmd	✅
psalm	✅
phpstan	✅
phpmetrics	✅
eslint		✅
stylelint		✅
build		✅
check-specs		✅
test-l10n		✅
test-l10n-parity		✅
format		✅
check-schema-l10n		✅
check-l10n-js		✅
composer			✅	✅ 174/174
npm			✅	✅ 543/543
app:check-code	⏭️
info.xml	✅
REUSE	❌
PHPUnit					✅
Newman					✅
Playwright					⏭️ deferred — runs on the promotion into beta/main, not on a pull request into development
Hydra gates					✅

---

Quality workflow — 2026-09-03 08:21 UTC

Download the full PDF report from the workflow artifacts.