fix(auth): return JSON 401 for all expired /setup-api/* requests (closes #304)

[KrasimirKralev]

Closes #304 — the follow-up to #231/#303, which each patched a single caller.

The latent bug

A raw fetch("/setup-api/...") sends Accept: */*. The middleware gate was:

if (accept.includes("application/json") || pathname.startsWith("/api/")) { return 401 }
// else -> HTML redirect to /login

So a fetch without an explicit Accept: application/json header fell through to the login-page redirect, and the caller's .json() then threw on the HTML body when the session had expired. ~30 callers across ~15 files (i18n.tsx, SettingsApp.tsx, mascot-client.ts, useOllamaModels, FilesApp, DoneStep, AIModelsStep, …) carried this.

Fix (the issue's preferred "deepest fix")

Return a JSON 401 for the whole /setup-api/* (and /api/*) prefix regardless of the Accept header. Every caller now gets a structured 401 it can detect — no client changes. Top-level page navigations (no API prefix) still redirect to /login.

Deliberate trade-off: the handful of /setup-api/* routes loaded by direct browser embedding (webapps?app= iframes, apps/icon/[appId] <img>, file downloads) now get a 401 instead of a login page. That's fine — a login page inside an <img> or a download stream is useless anyway; the desktop shell drives the real re-login.

Tests

• Updated the middleware suite: /setup-api/* with no Accept header now asserts 401 (was the buggy 307).
• Added a regression test asserting the 401 body is parseable JSON (the actual failure mode).
• 47/47 middleware tests passing on a real Jetson.

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Review details

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 40f1210 and fa29fed.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• src/middleware.ts
• src/tests/middleware/middleware.test.ts

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[github-actions]

🦀 ClawReview

Fresh PR washed in with the tide — here's the gist.

This PR fixes a long-standing session-expiry bug in the auth middleware: raw fetch() calls (which send Accept: /) were falling through to an HTML login-redirect instead of a JSON 401, causing .json() to throw on ~30 callers across ~15 files. The fix is a single condition change — /setup-api/* and /api/* paths now always return a JSON 401 regardless of Accept header, requiring no client-side updates.

At a glance

• 🔧 Fix · touches authentication middleware (src/middleware.ts)
• Base branch: beta · +23 source / +24 tests across 2 files
• ✅ base beta matches the beta-first convention
• ✅ conventional PR title
• ✅ source changes come with test changes
• ℹ️ touches security-sensitive paths (src/middleware.ts) — review with extra care

Good to know

• 🟡 Touches src/middleware.ts — security-sensitive path; the policy check flagged this for extra-careful review.
• ℹ️ Deliberate trade-off: /setup-api/* routes loaded by direct browser embedding (iframes, icon, file downloads) now receive a 401 instead of a login redirect. PR author argues this is acceptable since those contexts can't usefully display a login page.
• ℹ️ Tests verified on real Jetson hardware (47/47 passing) — good signal given this runs under systemd on customer devices.

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[github-actions]

CI Summary

✅ Tests

• Result: passed
• View run
• Coverage: statements 70.51%, branches 60.89%, functions 66.31%, lines 72.42%

✅ E2E

• Result: passed
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✅ E2E Install

• Result: success
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