Name the neighbours that have a name, before the ones that only have a number

The neighbour ring exists to say where you are. Since the catalogue refresh it
has been spending one of its four places in Sol on "Gaia DR3 5853498713190525696"
-- a nineteen-digit survey id for the star printed beside it as Proxima
Centauri, the same star twice -- and that duplicate row pushed Barnard's Star
off the ring altogether. 91.9% of the refreshed catalogue is named that way.

Named stars now come first, and survey designations fill in only where fewer
than four named ones are in reach. The line between the two is the one the
catalogue format already draws: a name is a designation when it is what the
star's source would generate for it. Judged by the prefix rather than by
rebuilding "prefix id" from the row, because the number after "Gaia DR3" is the
survey's own id, which the 32-bit row id cannot hold -- a round trip through
the id would have called every one of those stars named.

The preference lives on the index as `nearestPreferring`: the preferred pass
exhausts the search before the fill runs, so a named star is never outranked by
a nearer unnamed one. That is the whole point of asking.

The end-to-end spec names Barnard's Star again, on purpose. The four nearest
named stars to the Sun are a fact about space, not about which catalogue was
refreshed last, and without this change that is exactly the label that
vanished -- checked by running the spec with the preference stashed: it fails
on that line, and passes with it back.

npm test 609/609, npx playwright test 16/16 under CI=true --workers=2.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_014fcUfL82nvyh9VebX1Fz6w

e2e/neighbour-jump.spec.ts

@@ -17,23 +17,21 @@ test.describe('Neighbour jump', () => {
     await expect(readout).toHaveText('Sol', { timeout: 30_000 });
 
     // Its nearest neighbours are named around the edge of the view; each is a button that flies
-    // there. Whichever one the ring names, not a star named here: the catalogue is refreshed on
-    // a schedule, and a refresh reorders which four are nearest — a hand-picked name made this a
-    // test of the catalogue's contents rather than of the ring. Which of them survives the
-    // declutter is a property of the view, so the first is as good as any.
-    const neighbour = page.getByRole('button', { name: /^Go to .+ pc away$/ }).first();
+    // there. Barnard's Star by name, on purpose: the ring ranks named stars ahead of survey
+    // designations, and the four nearest named to the Sun — Proxima, Rigil Kentaurus, Toliman,
+    // Barnard's — are a fact about space, not about which catalogue was refreshed last. Before
+    // that preference, a Gaia row duplicating Proxima took fourth place and this very label was
+    // the one that vanished, so it is also the regression test for it. Barnard's rather than the
+    // Alpha Centauri trio because those three share one bearing and are decluttered down to
+    // whichever the label pass reaches first.
+    const neighbour = page.getByRole('button', { name: /Barnard's Star/ });
     await expect(neighbour).toBeVisible({ timeout: 30_000 });
-    const label = (await neighbour.getAttribute('aria-label'))!;
-    const name = /^Go to (.+), [\d.]+ pc away$/.exec(label)![1];
+    await neighbour.click();
 
-    // Clicked by the name just read rather than through `neighbour`, which re-resolves `.first()`
-    // and could land on a different star if the label pass reorders the ring in between.
-    await page.getByRole('button', { name: label, exact: true }).click();
-
-    await expect(readout).toHaveText(name, { timeout: 45_000 });
+    await expect(readout).toHaveText("Barnard's Star", { timeout: 45_000 });
     // And from there the walk goes on: the new system names its own neighbours. Which ones is
-    // not asserted — neighbours sharing a bearing are decluttered, so which of them survives is
-    // a property of the view, not a fact about the catalogue.
+    // not asserted — several of Barnard's nearest share a bearing, so which of them survives
+    // the declutter is a property of the view, not a fact about the catalogue.
     await expect(page.locator('.map-label--ghost')).not.toHaveCount(0, { timeout: 30_000 });
   });
 });

src/app/features/galaxy-system/galaxy-system-scene.component.ts

@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ import { DeepSkyRecord } from '../../shared/models/deepsky.model';
 import { ExoplanetRecord } from '../../shared/models/exoplanet.model';
 import { applyMilkyWaySkybox, createGlowSprite } from '../../shared/rendering/skybox';
 import { loadCachedTexture, MILKY_WAY_SKYBOX_PATH, SUN_TEXTURE_PATH } from '../../shared/rendering/texture-catalog';
+import { isDesignation } from '../../shared/models/star-catalog';
 import { StarRecord } from '../../shared/models/star.model';
 import { Bookmark } from '../../shared/state/bookmarks.store';
 import { NavigationStore, ViewLevel } from '../../shared/state/navigation.store';
@@ -855,7 +856,14 @@ export class GalaxySystemSceneComponent implements AfterViewInit, OnDestroy {
       // position: a neighbour whose separation rounds to what no separation prints as is not a
       // place to go, it is the same place. Compared through the formatter rather than against a
       // hand-picked epsilon, so the rule stays "would print as zero" whatever the formatter does.
-      .nearest(origin.id, NEIGHBOUR_COUNT * 2)
+      //
+      // Named stars first, survey designations only where fewer than that are in reach: a ring
+      // that exists to say where you are is not helped by "Gaia DR3 5853498713190525696" —
+      // least of all when that is the same star as the Proxima Centauri printed beside it.
+      .nearestPreferring(origin.id, NEIGHBOUR_COUNT * 2, (point) => {
+        const star = this.starsById.get(point.id);
+        return star !== undefined && !isDesignation(star);
+      })
       .filter((neighbour) => formatParsecs(neighbour.distancePc) !== formatParsecs(0))
       .slice(0, NEIGHBOUR_COUNT)
       .flatMap((neighbour) => {

src/app/shared/astro/star-neighbourhood.spec.ts

@@ -74,6 +74,16 @@ describe('StarNeighbourhood', () => {
     expect(ids(index.nearest(4, 2, (point) => point.id % 2 === 0))).toEqual([2, 6]);
   });
 
+  it('puts the stars it is told to prefer first, and fills with the rest only when short', () => {
+    const index = new StarNeighbourhood(line(10));
+    const even = (point: StarPoint) => point.id % 2 === 0;
+
+    // Enough even stars: the odd ones next door, though nearer, do not get a look in.
+    expect(ids(index.nearestPreferring(4, 2, even))).toEqual([2, 6]);
+    // Not enough: every even star in reach, then the nearest of the others.
+    expect(ids(index.nearestPreferring(4, 6, even))).toEqual([2, 6, 0, 8, 3, 5]);
+  });
+
   it('answers nothing for a star it has never heard of', () => {
     const index = new StarNeighbourhood(line(3));
 

src/app/shared/astro/star-neighbourhood.ts

@@ -70,6 +70,20 @@ export class StarNeighbourhood {
     return index === undefined ? undefined : this.points[index];
   }
 
+  /**
+   * Like `nearest`, but the stars `prefer` accepts come first, and the rest only fill what is
+   * left. The preferred pass exhausts the search before the fill runs, so a preferred star is
+   * never outranked by an ordinary one that happens to be closer — that is the point of asking.
+   */
+  nearestPreferring(id: number, count: number, prefer: (point: StarPoint) => boolean): Neighbour[] {
+    const preferred = this.nearest(id, count, prefer);
+    if (preferred.length >= count) {
+      return preferred;
+    }
+    const taken = new Set(preferred.map((neighbour) => neighbour.id));
+    return preferred.concat(this.nearest(id, count - preferred.length, (point) => !taken.has(point.id)));
+  }
+
   /**
    * The `count` stars nearest to `id`, nearest first, excluding the star itself.
    *

src/app/shared/models/star-catalog.spec.ts

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 import { describe, expect, it } from 'vitest';
 
-import { BYTES_PER_STAR_META, BYTES_PER_STAR_POSITION, decodeStarCatalog, encodeStarCatalog } from './star-catalog';
+import { BYTES_PER_STAR_META, BYTES_PER_STAR_POSITION, decodeStarCatalog, encodeStarCatalog, isDesignation } from './star-catalog';
 import { StarRecord } from './star.model';
 
 const STARS: StarRecord[] = [
@@ -131,4 +131,13 @@ describe('star catalogue provenance and derived names', () => {
     expect(named.index.names).toEqual(['Some Proper Name']);
     expect(decodeStarCatalog(named.index, named.positions, named.meta)[0].name).toBe('Some Proper Name');
   });
+
+  it('tells a name somebody gave from the designation a survey generates', () => {
+    expect(isDesignation(decoded[0])).toBe(false);
+    expect(isDesignation(decoded[1])).toBe(true);
+    // The real catalogue names Gaia stars by the survey's nineteen-digit source id, which no
+    // 32-bit row id can equal — so it is the prefix that decides, not a round trip through the id.
+    expect(isDesignation({ ...MIXED[1], name: 'Gaia DR3 5853498713190525696' })).toBe(true);
+    expect(isDesignation({ ...MIXED[1], name: 'Proxima Centauri' })).toBe(false);
+  });
 });

src/app/shared/models/star-catalog.ts

@@ -161,6 +161,17 @@ function designationFor(prefix: string | undefined, id: number): string | undefi
   return prefix === undefined ? undefined : `${prefix} ${id}`;
 }
 
+/**
+ * Whether a star's name is only the designation its source generates, rather than anything
+ * somebody called it. Judged by the prefix alone: the number after it is the survey's own id —
+ * nineteen digits for Gaia — which the 32-bit row id `designationFor` prints cannot hold, so a
+ * round-trip through the id would call every one of those stars named.
+ */
+export function isDesignation(star: StarRecord): boolean {
+  const prefix = star.source === undefined ? 'HYG' : (DESIGNATION_PREFIXES[star.source] ?? star.source);
+  return star.name.startsWith(`${prefix} `);
+}
+
 /** Rebuilds the star records the app works with from the three loaded assets. */
 export function decodeStarCatalog(index: StarCatalogIndex, positions: Float32Array, meta: ArrayBuffer): StarRecord[] {
   const columns = metaColumns(meta, index.count);