website dynamically targets development in dev mode

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 { UsersApi } from "@storyteller/api";
+import { StorytellerApiHostStore, UsersApi } from "@storyteller/api";
 
 const GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID = import.meta.env.VITE_GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID;
 
@@ -11,6 +11,15 @@ 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 {
+    StorytellerApiHostStore.getInstance().setDevelopment();
+  } 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

@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 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.
 (window as any).STORYTELLER_API_HOST_STORE = undefined;
@@ -33,8 +34,7 @@ export class StorytellerApiHostStore {
     if ((window as any).STORYTELLER_API_HOST_STORE !== undefined) {
       return (window as any).STORYTELLER_API_HOST_STORE;
     }
-    const defaultValue = StorytellerApiHostStore.getDefaultApiSchemeAndHost();
-    const instance = new StorytellerApiHostStore(defaultValue);
+    const instance = new StorytellerApiHostStore(DEFAULT_API_HOST_PRODUCTION);
     (window as any).STORYTELLER_API_HOST_STORE = instance;
     return instance;
   }
@@ -45,6 +45,21 @@ export class StorytellerApiHostStore {
     return this.apiSchemeAndHost;
   }
 
+  /**
+   * This mutates the singleton instance to target development.
+   */
+  public setDevelopment() {
+    console.warn("StorytellerApiHostStore.setDevelopment() - all calls will target development");
+    this.apiSchemeAndHost = DEFAULT_API_HOST_DEVELOPMENT;
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * This mutates the singleton instance to target production.
+   */
+  public setProduction() {
+    this.apiSchemeAndHost = DEFAULT_API_HOST_PRODUCTION;
+  }
+
   /** 
    * Externally update the API host. 
    * This is used to sync with Tauri for enabling easier development.
@@ -68,12 +83,4 @@ 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;
-  }
 }