Verifying metadata-admin designer changes (no backend needed)

The console ships a dev-only gallery that renders every registered metadata designer (packages/app-shell/src/views/metadata-admin/previews/*) with representative sample drafts, in edit mode, with zero backend:

cd apps/console && pnpm exec vite --port <free-port> --strictPort
# open http://localhost:<free-port>/preview-gallery.html
# isolate one designer: /preview-gallery.html?only=flow   (or ?only=dashboard, page, …)

Sample drafts live in apps/console/src/preview-samples.ts (keyed by metadata type: flow, workflow, object, …). Server-driven affordances (e.g. the flow palette's GET /api/v1/automation/actions) fail fetch and fall back to their hardcoded defaults — that IS the offline path, not an error.

Driving it headlessly

The chrome-devtools MCP may lack a Chrome binary in remote sessions. Use the repo's own Playwright instead — the pre-installed executable is the stable alias /opt/pw-browsers/chromium. ⛔ Never copy the versioned chromium-NNNN/chrome-linux/chrome spelling out of a probe: the alias is what survives an image bump, and a dead versioned path reads as "no browser here" when the browser is in fact present.

import { chromium } from '@playwright/test';
const browser = await chromium.launch({ executablePath: '/opt/pw-browsers/chromium' });

Gotcha: a driver script must live inside the repo (e.g. node_modules/.drive.mjs — ignored by git) so Node resolves @playwright/test; a script in /tmp won't resolve workspace deps.

Useful selectors: cmdk internals are addressable via [cmdk-item], [cmdk-group-heading], [cmdk-empty], [cmdk-item][data-selected="true"]; flow canvas node cards match .group.absolute.

Cleanup: kill only the vite server you started (kill $(lsof -ti tcp:<port>)).