The dev loop — localhost to the box

How a change goes from idea to production: built locally, self-tested, your-tested, then shipped to Singapore. The rhythm and the local-server norms that keep it honest.

Self-test before you ever see it

• I drive the app the way real users would and watch it behave — not just unit tests.
• DeepSeek API for cheap bulk runs; Sonnet sparingly; default to the Claude Code session over API spend.
• After any backend change, the safety net: python lib/smoketest.py (unit selftests + HTTP integration).

The local server — port 8011

• It must launch against the dev data, or it boots the empty default app.db and nobody can log in (the server still returns 200, so it looks fine):
  MAD_DB_PATH=app-dev.db MAD_ROOMS_DIR=rooms-dev
• Canonical launcher: scripts\restart8011.bat — kills whatever holds 8011, relaunches in a new console.
• Service-worker gotcha: the PWA service worker serves a stale shell, so a UI edit can look like it "didn't take" after a hard refresh — it's the SW, not the server. Use DevTools → "Update on reload", and bump the BUILD badge + sw.js cache on every UI ship.
• The manifest follows the user's theme (v1077, 2026-09-04): Android 15+ paints an installed app's status-bar strip from the manifest's fixed theme_color only (the page's theme-color meta still tints the strip's icons and colours Chrome tabs) — so a dark app kept a cream strip. The pages mirror the saved theme into a mad-theme cookie and /manifest.webmanifest swaps its two colours to match (the file on disk stays the light canon; no-store, Vary: Cookie, and the SW passes it through). The strip catches up when Chrome next re-checks the installed app's manifest — up to a day or two — not on the toggle itself.
• Local model seats (dev-only, 2026-08-24): both launchers set MAD_LOCAL_LLM_URL (Ollama's OpenAI door on this PC), which adds seven picker rows — local-qwen3, local-magidonia, local-cydonia, local-goetia, local-magnum, local-brokentutu and local-huihui — answering off the dev PC's 4090 at $0. Env-gated: the box never sets it, so the rows don't exist in production. Four seams route by api id (panel · act · prop · compose, ds_url_for); the fixed-role calls (floor producer, curator, clerks…) stay on DeepSeek. The Ollama names are the 32k-pinned derived models — the raw hf.co/… pulls load at 262k context and spill to CPU.

Test from a phone — LAN

• restart8011.bat binds 127.0.0.1 (this PC only). To reach 8011 from a phone or tablet on the same Wi-Fi, run scripts\serve-lan-8011.bat instead — it serves on 0.0.0.0, keeps the dev-data wiring, and prints the http://<LAN-IP>:8011 URL to open on the phone.
• It adds a Windows Firewall rule for inbound TCP 8011 (Private profile) — a UAC prompt appears the first time only.
• It deliberately leaves the session cookie insecure (MAD_SECURE_COOKIE unset) — that's what lets the phone log in over plain http:// on the LAN.
• Caveats: over plain http the PWA service worker won't register (no install/offline on the phone — fine for testing), and the phone must be on the same network (not a guest SSID).

Ship

• main is production — no staging. Push every change to origin immediately.
• Batch the box deploy (SSH pull + restart) until "deploy" is called — keeps the cross-border SSH footprint small.
• The box (Singapore Ali ECS) tracks main; its runtime state (app.db + rooms/) lives outside the repo at /var/lib/mad.