Re: #1 above, there are two approaches I see.

One, initialize the db connection earlier, possibly in tags-html.rkt (conditional on HTML being the current output target).

Two, define metas within a series that would govern how its child articles are displayed, and then call functions in the template based on those metas.

I’m leaning towards the first approach, because it gives author-me a lot more freedom in whether and where to put article listings. I could put them before, or between, or after other content in the series page. Or even omit them altogether, resulting in a series where you can’t see the child articles except by discovering them individually.