February 3: The Compositing Pipeline Takes Shape
A marathon session: 17 pull requests merged (4 features, 4 fixes, 8 docs, 1 maintenance). Security hardening across the stack.
Developer Journal
The compositing pipeline is starting to take shape — shared screenshots of three FITS files at different wavelengths combined into a single image (B1.1 through B1.7). Meanwhile, Claude tried to resolve merge conflicts by writing new code rather than just taking one side — and it actually worked. "If someone thinks you can 'claude --dangerously-skip-permissions' an app today you are WRONG!"
Claude churned for 17.5 minutes and produced a PR with 5 endpoints, several UI components, full integration and E2E testing, and a well-documented workflow. "This is not that special or unique, it's a very solved problem, but less than a year ago I was on a web app where a team of 5 devs took a sprint to do this — and Claude is about to do it while I watch YouTube." The human is the bottleneck now, slow at reviewing huge PRs.
An unfinished feature from the previous day broke the dashboard on load — the smoke test existed but didn't catch it. "This is the DEFINITION of a smoke test." The guardrails are mostly working though: rm -rf of build directories deleted a .sln file but git recovered it. "I'm gonna have to ~science~ DevOps the shit out of this." Also had Claude write a full desktop application requirements doc — it was an excellent novel-length spec that was exactly right, the only problem being it had to be read. Encouraged friends to try Codex while it's free through March 2nd.
Highlights
#121 implement RGB composite generation backend (B1.1)
- Add new
/api/composite/generateendpoint to create RGB composites from 3 FITS files - Implement composite module in processing engine with per-channel stretch controls
- Support automatic dimension resampling when FITS files have different sizes
- Include path traversal protection and comprehens...
#130 allow anonymous access to MAST search endpoints
- Add
[AllowAnonymous]attribute to read-only MAST search endpoints to fix 401 Unauthorized errors for unauthenticated users - Aligns with project API documentation: "Read operations (GET) allow anonymous access"
What Changed
Features (4)
- #117 implement JWT authentication for all API endpoints (Task #55)
- #121 implement RGB composite generation backend (B1.1)
- #125 add PNG/JPEG export with format, quality, and resolution options (A4)
- #128 add 3D data cube navigator for MIRI IFU spectral cubes
Bug Fixes (4)
- #123 resolve all code analysis warnings and enforce zero warnings
- #124 Add memory limits to FITS processing endpoints (Tech Debt #56)
- #126 correct MkDocs nav paths and add missing pages
- #130 allow anonymous access to MAST search endpoints
Documentation (8)
- #114 add desktop requirements specification document
- #115 add tech debt #70 for docs-only PR workflow optimization
- #116 add tech debt #71 for context window optimization
- #118 mark Task #55 as resolved (PR #117)
- #119 add compliance check reminder to workflow files
- #120 add auth review items to tech debt
- #122 add Python linting to workflow quality checks
- #129 add /compliance-check skill
Maintenance (1)
- #127 upgrade Node.js from 18 to 22 LTS
51 commits across 17 pull requests. Next: February 4, 2026 — add frontend authentication UI with login/register..., allow login with email address in addition to user..., add WCS Mosaic Generator (B2) to roadmap