What Was Wrong
The previous session migrated md-compare to CaseHub DraftHouse — Maven artifacts, Java packages, CI, docs, the lot. The spec included the phrase “npm can go” and Claude took that as permission to rip out the entire Electron shell. I missed it in the review.
The Electron app is the distribution mechanism. Users download it from the website and single-click launch. Without it, trying DraftHouse means installing Java 21, building the uber-jar, and running java -jar manually. I’d accidentally turned a one-click app into a five-step setup.
The Restore
We restored four files from git history — java-server.js, main.js, preload.js, package.json — each updated with DraftHouse naming. The jar path changed from mdcompare-server-runner.jar to drafthouse-server-runner.jar, error messages got the new name, the package.json got the new identity.
The interesting part was index.html. It needed to work in both Electron and browser mode. The pattern is one line:
const isElectron = typeof window.compare !== 'undefined';
From there, everything branches. In Electron mode, apiUrl() hits http://127.0.0.1:${API_PORT}, selectFile() opens a native dialog via IPC, and drop zones use file.path from the drag event. In browser mode, relative URLs, prompt(), and URL query params. Same file, same DOM, different plumbing depending on what’s available at runtime.
Drop zones were the detail that mattered. Electron’s file.path on drag events gives you the real filesystem path — something browser File objects deliberately withhold. Without Electron, drop zones are decoration.
Cleaning the History
Thirteen migration commits included the Electron removal, follow-up UI changes to work without it, and then the restoration. Four of those commits cancelled each other out — pure noise in the history.
We did a semantic squash: git reset --soft back to the pre-migration commit, unstaged everything, then re-committed in two logical groups. First the docs (spec and implementation plan), then the migration itself — with Electron intact throughout. The removal never happened as far as git log is concerned.
Claudony and the Longer View
Restoring Electron prompted a bigger thought. DraftHouse reviews markdown diffs. But so will Claudony’s channels, eventually. I could almost see DraftHouse as a Claudony plugin rather than a standalone tool.
Not yet though. Claudony’s channel architecture is still forming. Building a plugin against an API that doesn’t exist yet means rewriting the integration later anyway. The better move: finish the critique feature standalone — the LLM anchoring to diff chunks is the hard part — then embed into Claudony when its plugin surface stabilises.
I updated CLAUDE.md with the architectural direction: keep the diff engine, word-level highlighting, and critique anchoring as pure modular functions. No UI framework coupling. The Electron shell and browser mode are distribution wrappers, not the product.