GlobalLockSummary
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This catalog grows by people who have measured a real lock writing down what they found. The most valuable contribution is not a big one — it is one lock family from a country we have not covered, with numbers and a photo.

The fastest contribution

Open an issue with:

  1. Country and city
  2. What the door is (timber, uPVC, metal gate, glass)
  3. Backset, centre distance, faceplate size, door thickness
  4. A photo of the door edge with a ruler in frame
  5. Whether the door is fire-rated

That is enough for a maintainer to create the record. If you would rather write the record yourself, the instructions are below.

Repository layout

content/
  site.json                 site name, navigation, languages, footer text
  i18n/terms.json           shared bilingual terminology — add a term once
  pages/<lang>/*.md         long-form pages, one folder per language
  catalog/
    lock-families/*.json    one file per lock family
    standards.json          all standards in one file
    retrofit-architectures.json
    smart-locks.json        reference devices
    decision-tree.json      the identification wizard's questions

Adding a lock family is adding one JSON file. Nothing else needs editing — the index pages, the search index, the sitemap and llms.txt all regenerate from it.

The lock family schema

{
  "id": "kebab-case-unique-id",
  "status": "verified | needs-review",
  "regions": ["Country", "..."],
  "title": { "en": "...", "zh": "..." },
  "summary": { "en": "...", "zh": "..." },
  "anatomy": { "en": ["..."], "zh": ["..."] },
  "measurements": [
    {
      "key": "backset",
      "typical": "55 mm, 60 mm",
      "tolerance": "±1 mm",
      "how": { "en": "Door edge to keyhole centre.", "zh": "..." }
    }
  ],
  "measureOrder": ["backset", "centreDistance"],
  "standards": ["din-18251"],
  "retrofit": { "architectures": ["motor-on-thumbturn"], "notes": { "en": "...", "zh": "..." } },
  "faq": { "en": [{ "q": "...", "a": "..." }], "zh": [] },
  "sources": [{ "title": "...", "url": "https://..." }]
}

The key values in measurements must exist in content/i18n/terms.json under measurements — that is how the label gets translated once instead of per record. npm run check fails the build if you use a key that does not exist.

Status is not optional

  • verified — the numbers were cross-checked against a published source, which is linked in sources. Datasheets, standard documents and manufacturer specifications count. A forum post does not.
  • needs-review — anything else, including anything you measured yourself but nobody has confirmed. This is published with a visible warning, and it is much better than the record not existing.

Never mark something verified without a link. The whole value of this site is that a reader can check it.

Writing for the two audiences

Every record is read by a homeowner and by a mechanical engineer, often in that order. Keep the summary in plain language and the measurements precise. If a number matters, give the tolerance — a dimension without a tolerance is not a specification.

Translations

Content is bilingual (English and 中文) today. The structure is designed to grow: data lives in JSON with per-language fields, and shared vocabulary lives in terms.json, so machine translation later can work on terminology rather than prose.

If you add a language, create content/pages/<lang>/ and add the language to content/site.json under languages, navigation and the UI strings. Nothing in the build needs changing.

Running it locally

node build.mjs            # build to _site/
node build.mjs --watch    # rebuild on change
node serve.mjs            # serve _site/ on http://localhost:8080
npm run check             # syntax + referential integrity of the catalog data

No dependencies to install. Node 20 or newer.

What is most wanted right now

  1. Africa, South America, the Middle East — no lock families at all yet
  2. Australia — the standard designation needs confirming
  3. Japan — case dimensions and the applicable JIS reference
  4. Photos with rulers — for every family, so the identification wizard can show them
  5. Adapter teardowns — measured clamp ranges and turn-piece profiles, which no manufacturer publishes

Engineer feedback