fix(client): the desktop client runs, and running it corrected three things

Electron 42 / Chromium 148, launched under xvfb. The packaged interface mounts
over `app://` with a secure context, `crypto.subtle` present, Argon2 WASM
loaded, and no console errors. Three statements in the design were wrong, and
only launching it found them.

**A CSP in a `<meta>` tag silently drops `frame-ancestors`.** Chromium says so
in the console. A policy carrying a directive that does nothing is worse than
one without it, so the policy is sent as a header by the protocol handler —
which is also the only thing serving the interface, so one source instead of
two.

**`secure: true` is not what makes the service worker register.** Chromium
refuses a worker on a custom scheme whatever its privileges: "The URL protocol
of the current origin ('app://meshbay') is not supported". The application has
no service worker and needs none — it saves through a native dialog, which is
the better of the two paths. `sw.js` stays in the package because the same files
serve the browser, where it is one of only three ways to write a large file.

What `secure: true` is actually for was measured at the same time: without it
**the whole of `crypto.subtle` is undefined**. The first probe loaded a `data:`
URL and every algorithm failed with TypeError, AES-GCM included — which is why
the probe was rewritten before believing its answer. X25519 and Ed25519 are both
present on Chromium 148, settling the version floor left open as O6.

**The renderer cannot call the hub.** Its origin is `app://meshbay` and CORS
refuses it. The hub has *no CORS middleware at all* — its API is reachable from
no web origin whatever — and that is worth keeping. Widening it for
`app://meshbay` would be worse than it looks: that origin is not a credential,
since any Electron application can claim the same scheme and host name.

So every hub call leaves from the main process, exactly as saving a file does,
and it refuses any origin that is not the hub the user signed in to.
`platform.apiFetch()` is `fetch` in a browser and the bridge in the application,
so no caller has to know which it got. `transport.js` reaches it through a
global because it is a classic script, not a module — the alternative was a
second fetch path, which is how two callers of one hub start disagreeing about
how to reach it.

Verified from inside Electron: the main process gets 200 from
/v1/hub/version, the renderer is refused by CORS, and **a script served by the
hub is refused by the policy** — T3's mitigation demonstrated rather than
asserted.

Build note, written into the README because it will bite the next person:
**Ubuntu 24.04's nodejs 18 cannot install Electron at all** — the download
script `require()`s an ESM module, which Node gained in 22. Node 24 LTS,
checksum-verified against nodejs.org, is what this was built with.
package-lock.json is committed; builds use `npm ci`, not `npm install`.

799 tests pass, e2e.py still passes end to end. The session harness needed a
platform stub: it lifts `hubFetch` out of app.js as text and runs it, so the
adapter is now part of the environment it models.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

1 files changed, 44 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/packages/meshbay-hub/src/meshbay_hub/static/platform.js b/packages/meshbay-hub/src/meshbay_hub/static/platform.js
index 0663a42..fcc866e 100644
--- a/packages/meshbay-hub/src/meshbay_hub/static/platform.js
+++ b/packages/meshbay-hub/src/meshbay_hub/static/platform.js
@@ -88,6 +88,40 @@ export const secrets = {
 };
 
 /**
+ * Call the hub.
+ *
+ * In a browser this is `fetch`, unchanged — the page came from the hub, so the
+ * request is same-origin and nothing is in the way.
+ *
+ * In the application the page's origin is `app://meshbay`, and a browser fetch
+ * from it is refused by CORS. The hub has **no CORS middleware at all**, and
+ * that is worth keeping: its API is reachable from no web origin whatever.
+ * Widening it for `app://meshbay` would be worse than it appears, because that
+ * origin is not a credential — any Electron application can claim the same
+ * scheme and host name.
+ *
+ * So the main process makes the call. It returns a small object rather than a
+ * Response, and this shapes it back into something with `.ok`, `.status` and
+ * `.json()`, so callers do not have to know which one they got.
+ */
+export async function apiFetch(url, init) {
+  if (!bridge || !bridge.fetch) return fetch(url, init);
+  const raw = await bridge.fetch(String(url), init && {
+    method: init.method,
+    headers: init.headers,
+    body: init.body,
+  });
+  return {
+    ok: raw.ok,
+    status: raw.status,
+    statusText: String(raw.status),
+    headers: new Headers(raw.headers || {}),
+    text: async () => raw.body,
+    json: async () => JSON.parse(raw.body),
+  };
+}
+
+/**
  * Save a decrypted file to disk.
  *
  * Returns null when there is no native path, so the caller keeps today's
@@ -100,4 +134,13 @@ export async function nativeSave(suggestedName, size) {
   return bridge.saveFile(suggestedName, size);
 }
 
-export default { isNative, hubBase, capabilities, secrets, nativeSave };
+export default { isNative, hubBase, capabilities, secrets, nativeSave, apiFetch };
+
+// Also a global, because `transport.js` is loaded as a classic script — it
+// predates the module graph and exposes `MeshBayTransport` the same way. The
+// alternative was a second fetch path there, which is how two callers of one
+// hub end up disagreeing about how to reach it.
+if (typeof window !== 'undefined') {
+  window.MeshBayPlatform = { isNative, hubBase, capabilities, secrets,
+                             nativeSave, apiFetch };
+}