Refactor: ChatLab Electron → Web Application

[WZhijun154]

Refactor: ChatLab Electron → Web Application

This PR refactors ChatLab from an Electron desktop app into a standard web application with an Express backend and Vue 3 + Vite frontend.

Motivation

Remove the Electron dependency so ChatLab can run as a web app — deployable anywhere, no desktop install required.

Architecture Changes

Before: Electron main process ↔ IPC ↔ Renderer (Vue)
After: Express server (API) ↔ HTTP ↔ Vue 3 SPA (Vite)

What Changed

285 files changed — 21,988 insertions, 22,397 deletions

🗄️ Server (new server/ directory)

All Electron main process logic moved to an Express server:

Module	Routes	Description
Database	server/database/core.ts	SQLite via better-sqlite3 (was Electron main process)
Workers/Query	server/services/	Query execution, worker modules
Chat	/api/chat/*	Session CRUD, chat operations
Import	/api/import/*	Chat import with file upload
Analysis	/api/analysis/*	Analysis data endpoints
Members	/api/members/*	Member management
Messages	/api/messages/*	Message queries
NLP	/api/nlp/*	NLP processing, stopwords
AI/LLM	/api/llm/*	LLM config, model management
AI Agent	/api/agent/*	Streaming agent API, desensitize rules
AI Conversations	/api/ai-conversations/*	AI conversation management
RAG/Embedding	/api/embedding/*	Embedding generation, vector search
Cache	/api/cache/*	Cache management
Network	/api/network/*	Network/proxy operations
Session Index	/api/session-index/*	Session indexing
Merge	/api/merge/*	Database merge operations
Migration	/api/migration/*	Database migrations

🖥️ Frontend (src/)

• New src/api/ client layer — HTTP client replacing window.* preload APIs
• All window.chatApi, window.mergeApi, window.aiApi, window.agentApi calls replaced with HTTP API client
• All remaining window.* Electron API calls replaced
• TitleBar component updated — removed Electron window controls, added web-native UI
• Vite config updated with dev server proxy (/api → Express backend)

🗑️ Removed

• electron/ directory (main process, preload scripts, IPC handlers)
• electron-builder.yml
• electron.vite.config.ts
• All electron/preload/apis/* files
• Electron-specific dependencies

✅ Tests

• Server route tests: chat, import, analysis, members, messages, NLP, LLM, agent, AI conversations, embedding, cache, network, session-index, merge, migration
• Database core tests
• Integration tests (server/integration.test.ts)
• API client tests (src/api/__tests__/)

How to Run

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Start dev server (Express + Vite)
npm run dev

# Build for production
npm run build

Stories Implemented

1. US-001 Initialize project structure and package.json for web app
2. US-002 Move database core module to server with better-sqlite3
3. US-003 Move worker/query modules to server-side services
4. US-004 Create chat session API routes
5. US-005 Create chat import API routes with file upload
6. US-006 Create analysis data API routes
7. US-007 Create member management API routes
8. US-008 Create message query API routes
9. US-009 Move NLP module to server and create API routes
10. US-010 Move AI/LLM modules to server and create LLM config API routes
11. US-011 Move AI Agent to server and create streaming agent API
12. US-012 Move RAG/Embedding modules to server and create API routes
13. US-013 Create cache, network, and session-index API routes
14. US-014 Create merge and database migration API routes
15. US-015 Create frontend API client layer replacing Electron preload APIs
16. US-016 Replace window.chatApi and window.mergeApi calls with HTTP API client
17. US-017 Replace window.aiApi and window.agentApi calls with HTTP API client
18. US-018 Replace remaining window.* API calls with HTTP API client
19. US-019 Remove Electron-specific code and update TitleBar for web
20. US-020 End-to-end integration: dev server, build, and smoke test

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Built via antfarm multi-agent workflow (feature-dev pipeline)