The distributions guide framed export/import as local backup only, so the
new slash commands read as a competing path instead of the lightweight
half of one story. Give profile-distributions.md a comparison table up
front (git repo vs single file: updates, versioning, setup cost, what
each carries), rewrite the Not-a-fit bullets that mislabeled export, and
add a full Export/import section covering the CLI, TUI, and desktop
entry points, the desktop.json overlay, and what an archive actually
contains — including that it can carry memories and sessions, which a
distribution never does.
Also register /export and /import in the slash-command reference (they
shipped undocumented), point the profile-command entries at their chat
and desktop doors, and cover the desktop Export/Import UI on the desktop
page.
PR #20831 shipped the feature with a terse reference page. This adds a
proper user guide — ~570 lines of what/why/when/how with use-case
walkthroughs, lifecycle coverage from author through installer through
update, and recipe snippets for common workflows.
New page: website/docs/user-guide/profile-distributions.md
Sections:
* What this means — the before/after, side-by-side
* Why git, not tarballs or a custom format
* When to use a distribution (personal, team, community, product) and
when NOT to (local backup, sharing credentials, sharing memories)
* The lifecycle — dedicated walkthroughs for authors (publish in 4 steps)
and installers (install, check, update, remove)
* Use cases: personal sync, team internal bot, community publish,
commercial product, ephemeral ops agent
* Recipes: pin a version, compare installed vs. latest, preserve local
customizations through updates, force clean reinstall, fork-and-customize,
test before pushing
* What is NEVER in a distribution (the user-owned exclude list verbatim)
* Security and trust model — what you are trusting, why cron is not
auto-scheduled, the browser-extension analogy
Cross-linking:
* Added to sidebar under Getting Started, right after user-guide/profiles.
* Existing Profiles page ends with a Sharing profiles as distributions
teaser that links here.
* The Distribution section of the reference page gets an admonition
pointing newcomers here first. The reference stays as a CLI-flag
lookup for people who already know what they want.
Validation:
* ascii-guard lint --exclude-code-blocks docs -> 0 errors.
* All internal links resolve to real pages.
Brooklyn Nicholson