A Table input's current sort order is only tracked internally. This poses a problem if a notebook author wants to persist the current sort state, e.g. via a permalink.

Suggested solution

When the sort column or order is changed, dispatch a custom sort event:

new CustomEvent('sort', {bubbles: true, detail: {sort: currentColumnName, reverse: currentReverse}})

Workaround

The instantiating cell can listen to click events and parse order and column name from event.target.textContent. This technique is error prone and expected to break once additional features (like custom table names) have been added.

The workaround is currently implemented here: https://observablehq.com/@mootari/sortable-notebook-list#selection