--------------------------
-[[!template id=gitbranch branch=smcv/transient author="[[smcv]]"]]
+[[!template id=gitbranch branch=smcv/ready/transient author="[[smcv]]"]]
[[!tag patch]]
+I think this branch is now enough to be useful. It adds the following:
+
+If the `transient` plugin is loaded, `$srcdir/.ikiwiki/transient` is added
+as an underlay. I'm not sure whether this should be a plugin or core, so
+I erred on the side of more plugins; I think it's "on the edge of the core",
+like goto.
+
+Pages with the default extension in the transient underlay are automatically
+deleted if a page of the same name is created in the srcdir (or an underlay
+closer to the srcdir in stacking order).
+
+`tag` enables `transient`, and if `tag_autocreate_commit` is set to 0
+(default 1), autocreated tags are written to the transient underlay.
+There is a regression test.
+
+`autoindex` uses autofiles. It also enables `transient`, and if
+`autoindex_commit` is set to 0 (default 1), autoindexes are written to
+the transient underlay. There is a regression test.
+
+autoindex ignores pages in the transient underlay when deciding whether
+to generate an index.
+
+New recent changes go in the transient underlay; I tested this manually.
+
+Not done yet (in that branch, at least):
+
+* `remove` can't remove transient pages: this turns out to be harder than
+ I'd hoped, because I don't want to introduce a vulnerability in the
+ non-regular-file detection, so I'd rather defer that.
+
+* Transient tags that don't match any pages aren't deleted: I'm not sure
+ that that's a good idea anyway, though. Similarly, transient autoindexes
+ of directories that become empty aren't deleted.
+
+* In my `untested/transient` branch, new aggregated files go in the
+ transient underlay too (they'll naturally migrate over time). I haven't
+ tested this yet, it's just a proof-of-concept.
+
+> I can confirm that the behavior of autoindex, at least, is excellent.
+> Haven't tried tag. Joey, can you merge transient and autoindex? --JoeRayhawk
+
+--------------------------
+
+## An earlier version
+
I had a look at implementing this. It turns out to be harder than I thought
to have purely in-memory pages (several plugins want to be able to access the
source file as a file), but I did get this proof-of-concept branch