Publish protected nanopublications from local instances (#671)

[tkuhn]

Second half of #671: Nanodash could already recognize protected nanopublications (the 🔒 flag, the 🔒 restricted marker); this lets users of a deployment connected to a local/private registry create them.

The marker

What registries look at is one triple, this: a npx:ProtectedNanopub. It is added by an ordinary pubinfo template, RAjTlfGJ… (published, unlisted, no placeholders), rather than emitted in code — so the statement has a nt:wasCreatedFromPubinfoTemplate link like every other one, and ValueFiller claims it when a protected nanopublication is superseded instead of sweeping it into the hand-coded catch-all.

The template is driven by a checkbox of its own rather than the "add element…" dropdown. That dropdown is behind "show more", and the generic "Nanopublication type" element produces npx:hasNanopubType — not what registries check, so a nanopublication that looks protected in the form would go to the public network. PublishForm.checkProtectedMarker now refuses to build one of those.

One checkbox, not two

Consent is about open publication, so the consent checkbox is shown only for a nanopublication that will be openly published, and says so where protection is possible:

I understand that this will be openly published, that published data cannot be fully removed (only retracted or superseded by new versions), and that it will be publicly connected to my personal identifier.

Ticking the protected box takes that checkbox away rather than rewording it. The user has one box, and its note is a statement of fact: "This nanopublication will stay on the local instance this Nanodash is connected to." The public wording would not be true there — "cannot be fully removed" holds for the public network, not for one instance whose operators can take it off again.

The preview page shows the same box, ticked and disabled: by then the marker is signed into the content.

When it is not the user's choice

ProtectedNanopubs.getForcedReason — the fill source is protected (the new version repeats its content), a template the form is built on is protected (a public nanopublication would carry a link nobody outside can follow), or the assertion template lists the element in nt:hasRequiredPubinfoElement. The checkbox is then ticked and disabled with the reason shown. If protection is forced or defaulted on and the template cannot be loaded, publishing is refused rather than silently downgraded to public.

Defaults

NANODASH_PROTECTED_BY_DEFAULT (or protectedByDefault in the preferences file), because both kinds of local instance exist: mostly-public ones with occasional protected content, and private-by-default ones.

Second commit: where it is sent

PublishNanopub.publish picks from the library's own registry list, which knows nothing about NANODASH_MAIN_REGISTRY. A deployment configured only the Nanodash way read from its local instance but could not publish a protected nanopublication to it — "None of the available registries is a local instance", with the local instance sitting in the config. Utils.publishNanopub now addresses protected nanopublications to getMainRegistryUrl() directly.

Unprotected ones keep going to the library's list, deliberately: registries pull from their peers rather than pushing to them, so an openly published nanopublication sent only to a private registry would never reach the public network.

Verification

1323 tests, 0 failures (+21). Beyond the unit tests, driven end to end against a local stack (registry 1.12.1 + query 1.28.0, both LOCAL_INSTANCE=true), from a deployment deliberately configured without NANOPUB_REGISTRY_INSTANCES — the case that used to fail:

• published https://w3id.org/np/RA5-gEQNLlun_V1QVV6pbzedbRBzSXY5_4x5fJXM8nCcU
• log: Publishing protected nanopublication to the configured local instance: http://localhost:19292/
• local registry 200; registry.knowledgepixels.com, registry.petapico.org and w3id.org all 404
• stored pubinfo carries this: a npx:ProtectedNanopub and the template link; Nanodash renders it back with the 🔒 flag

Design notes in docs/protected-nanopublications.md.

Known gaps

• A nanopublication governed by a protected space does not force protection: the governing space is a resource IRI, not the nanopublication defining it, so answering that needs a query. In practice the templates such a space governs are local-only, which the template rule catches.
• On a private-by-default deployment the protected box starts ticked, so nothing is left for the user to tick before publishing — consent becomes implicit there. That follows from tying consent to open publication.

Closes #671

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01XwZT7hRpsCLCaJw7GCkHWy

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🎉 This PR is included in version 5.14.0 🎉

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