fix: mobile footer flow, 6-post pages, flipped post-nav, Node 24 CI

[jjsnack]

What

Mobile/UX polish plus two build-pipeline deprecation fixes.

• Footer covers content on narrow viewports — the fixed bottom-left footer sat on top of the 68ch content column once the left gutter shrank. Below 82rem it now flows to the page bottom; wider viewports keep it fixed.
• Pagination — pagerSize 12 → 6.
• Post-nav arrows flipped — left ← now goes to the more recent post, right → to the older one (accounts for Hugo's .NextInSection = newer gotcha).
• languageCode → locale in exampleSite/hugo.toml (deprecated in Hugo 0.158).
• CI — actions/checkout@v4 → @v5, off the deprecated Node 20 runtime.

Test

hugo --source=exampleSite --minify builds clean, no warnings or deprecations.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[jjsnack]

Code review — /frontend-design + /frontend-ui-engineering + JS best practices.

Real issues

1. Light-mode --muted fails WCAG AA contrast (assets/css/main.css:28)
--muted: #8a8a8a on #ffffff = 3.45:1, below the 4.5:1 floor for normal text. Used everywhere for small secondary text (0.72–0.85rem): post dates, meta, footer, eyebrows, page intro, pager count, topic counts. Dark mode #7d7d7d on #111 = 4.59:1 and passes — only the light base is broken. Fix: --muted: #767676; (~4.54:1).

2. .pager__link--off near-invisible (main.css:396)
color: var(--border) ≈ 1.2:1 on white. Disabled nav is contrast-exempt so not a violation, but the off "← newer / older →" is unreadable. Optional: bump to --muted.

Minor

3. No prefers-reduced-motion — low impact (only color transitions, no transforms) but worth a cheap global opt-out.

4. Duplicate dark @media blocks (main.css:57 and 66) — same query + selector split only by a comment; mergeable.

5. Drag clamp uses stale rect (assets/js/console.js:274) — getBoundingClientRect() captured once at pointerdown; resize mid-drag skews the clamp. Desktop-only edge case.

Good — leave alone

• run() pure + node console.js self-check with asserts per branch.
• Progressive enhancement: launcher/window ship hidden, JS unhides; page works JS-off.
• Focus management on open/close/Escape, role="log" + aria-live="polite", decorative banner aria-hidden.
• Console gated to desktop by (hover:none) and (pointer:coarse), not width.
• ES5 style is deliberate (node self-check, no build step) — not a defect.

Applying fixes 1, 3, 4.