Vite 8 Renderer Toolchain Migration

This document records CoWork OS's renderer-toolchain migration from Vite 7.3.1 to Vite 8.3.0. The migration is complete and intentionally does not move the desktop app to Electron Forge.

Architecture boundary

CoWork uses separate build paths:

• The React renderer is bundled by Vite through npm run build:react.
• Electron main/preload code is compiled by TypeScript through npm run build:electron.
• The daemon, CLI, and connectors continue to use their existing TypeScript builds.
• Desktop installers continue to be produced by Electron Builder.

Vite 8 therefore upgrades the renderer bundler without changing the Electron runtime, packaging system, IPC boundary, or native-module workflow. Electron Forge remains an independent future evaluation rather than a prerequisite for this migration.

Dependency versions

The manifest ranges and current lockfile resolution are:

Keep package-lock.json synchronized with package.json. Use the repository's normal Node.js 24+ setup before installing or rebuilding native dependencies.

Migration changes

Renderer configuration

The existing renderer contract is preserved in vite.config.mts:

• root: src/renderer
• base URL: ./ for packaged Electron loading
• output: dist/renderer
• public assets: src/renderer/public
• aliases: @ and @shared
• development server: 127.0.0.1 with strict port selection

The contract is covered by src/renderer/__tests__/vite-config.test.ts.

Explicit runtime dependencies

Two dependencies are intentionally direct rather than relying on transitive packages:

• react-is is required by the Recharts dependency graph. Vite 8/Rolldown resolves the import strictly enough that the renderer build must be able to resolve it from the project dependency tree.
• esbuild is used directly by existing build/test helpers. Vite 8 no longer provides a suitable transitive installation for those imports, so the project declares it explicitly as a development dependency.

Validation checklist

Run the focused checks first:

npm run build:react
npm run build:electron
npm run type-check
npx vitest run \
  src/renderer/__tests__/vite-config.test.ts \
  src/electron/agent/__tests__/executor-step-failures.test.ts \
  src/electron/memory/__tests__/TranscriptStore.test.ts

For dependency-resolution validation, use:

npm ci --dry-run --ignore-scripts --no-audit --no-fund
npm ls vite @vitejs/plugin-react vitest @vitest/coverage-v8 esbuild react-is --depth=0

The full repository gates remain useful after the focused checks:

npm run lint
npm run fmt:check
npm test

For a macOS packaging check on an unsigned local build:

npm run package:mac:unsigned
npm run package:mac:smoke -- --allow-unsigned

Packaging smoke failures involving missing persona-template resources are packaging manifest issues and should be investigated in Electron Builder extraResources; they are not evidence of a Vite renderer failure.

Vite 8 config loading

The Vite and Vitest configs use the .mts extension so the native config loader treats their ESM syntax as a module. This keeps the test and renderer commands free of the CommonJS config-loader warning and avoids relying on a future Vite compatibility fallback.

Vite 8 also reports large-chunk warnings for existing renderer bundles. These are bundle budget/code-splitting follow-ups, not migration blockers.

Upstream references

• Vite 8 announcement
• Vite migration guide