architecture.md

Architecture

Web And Mobile Direction

The long-term shape of the project is:

• UI code is local to the client
• remote network access is limited to:
  • game images
  • the catalog data contract

That makes the product a good fit for mobile wrappers or native clients because:

• the interface can ship bundled with the app
• the dataset can be updated independently
• updates are explicit and versioned
• offline caching is straightforward

The browser app already consumes the manifest-first JSON contract and still keeps CSV fallback support as a safety net during the transition.

Repo Structure

Core files:

• main.js: catalog refresh pipeline
• server.js: local static server
• index.html: app shell
• js/app.js: filtering, sorting, rendering, and UI state
• css/styles.css: frontend styling
• data/title-overrides.json: manual title aliases for difficult HLTB matches
• data/catalog-manifest.json: stable manifest for shared clients
• data/catalog.json: stable current JSON dataset
• data/catalogs/: immutable versioned JSON datasets
• data/list.csv: generated CSV export
• data/metadata.json: generated refresh metadata