Pilots behind the inspecting proxy cannot reliably build the frontend from source; npm's many small fetches get reset mid-install. Build the image once in CI on the clean runners and have pilots pull the finished channel image. One resumable image pull survives the proxy where hundreds of npm requests do not, and a pilot now needs only Docker.
GE/Zscaler proxy inspection breaks npm ci silently, leaving node_modules
incomplete and vite missing at build time. Detect the root CA from the
host's chain to the npm registry and stage it as corp-root-ca.pem so the
Dockerfile trusts it; harmless on clean networks.
A bleeding-edge container running next to a stable one on the same dev box is easy to confuse, and a branch-only badge would force perpetual rebase/cherry-pick drift between main and dev-be. Instead the badge is config-driven: the settings endpoint injects a synthetic env_label from SHOPDB_ENV_LABEL, the sidebar renders a red DEV tag only when it is non-empty, and stable simply leaves it unset. Same code on both channels, no divergence.
dev-bootstrap.ps1 makes a fresh Windows box turnkey: it checks git/Docker (winget-installs with a prompt), verifies the engine is actually running, then builds and starts an isolated per-channel stack so stable and edge coexist on distinct ports, projects, and volumes. docker-compose.channel.yml is a thin overlay so the base compose file stays channel-agnostic.