dynamically select API host for development / production

frontend/apps/artcraft-website/src/main.tsx

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ import { BrowserRouter } from "react-router-dom";
 import * as ReactDOM from "react-dom/client";
 import { GoogleOAuthProvider } from "@react-oauth/google";
 import App from "./app/app";
-import { StorytellerApiHostStore, UsersApi } from "@storyteller/api";
+import { UsersApi } from "@storyteller/api";
 
 const GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID = import.meta.env.VITE_GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID;
 
@@ -11,16 +11,6 @@ const root = ReactDOM.createRoot(
   document.getElementById("root") as HTMLElement,
 );
 
-// In development, route API through the Vite dev server origin to avoid CORS
-if (import.meta.env.DEV) {
-  try {
-    const origin = window.location.origin;
-    StorytellerApiHostStore.getInstance().setApiSchemeAndHost(origin);
-  } catch (e) {
-    console.warn("Failed to set dev API host override", e);
-  }
-}
-
 // Cache the referrer immediately — it can change or disappear on navigation.
 // Only set once so subsequent in-site navigations don't overwrite the original.
 if (!(window as any).cached_referrer) {

frontend/libs/api/src/lib/config/StorytellerApiHostStore.ts

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 // Artcraft / Storyteller API backend
-const DEFAULT_API_HOST = "https://api.storyteller.ai";
+const DEFAULT_API_HOST_PRODUCTION = "https://api.storyteller.ai";
+const DEFAULT_API_HOST_DEVELOPMENT = "http://localhost:12345";
 
 // NB(bt,2025-09-25): 'nx' is creating multiple copies of the library with name 
 //   mangling, so the singleton pattern fails to resolve to a single instance.
@@ -32,7 +33,8 @@ export class StorytellerApiHostStore {
     if ((window as any).STORYTELLER_API_HOST_STORE !== undefined) {
       return (window as any).STORYTELLER_API_HOST_STORE;
     }
-    const instance = new StorytellerApiHostStore(DEFAULT_API_HOST);
+    const defaultValue = StorytellerApiHostStore.getDefaultApiSchemeAndHost();
+    const instance = new StorytellerApiHostStore(defaultValue);
     (window as any).STORYTELLER_API_HOST_STORE = instance;
     return instance;
   }
@@ -66,4 +68,12 @@ export class StorytellerApiHostStore {
   private constructor(apiSchemeAndHost: string) {
     this.apiSchemeAndHost = apiSchemeAndHost;
   }
+
+  private static getDefaultApiSchemeAndHost(): string {
+    // NB: hostname can be empty string
+    if (window.location.hostname === "localhost") {
+      return DEFAULT_API_HOST_DEVELOPMENT;
+    }
+    return DEFAULT_API_HOST_PRODUCTION;
+  }
 }