fix(shell, apps): copy tsconfig.base.json into every frontend image — all six Docker builds have been failing since 2026-08-03

Found while confirming which env-var names Railway still supplies for the
corpora-curator rename. The service had not deployed successfully in twelve
days: four consecutive FAILED builds, the most recent on 254765f, the release
commit.

Nothing looked broken, which is why nobody noticed. A failed deploy here is
silent — the previous container keeps serving, the URL keeps answering, the
health check keeps passing, and the only record is a red row in a dashboard
nobody had open.

Every app tsconfig is a three-line stub that extends ../../tsconfig.base.json.
The frontend Dockerfiles copy package.json, the lockfile, the workspace
manifest, packages/, apps/ and shell/ — never the root file all of those
tsconfigs inherit from. `pnpm install` doesn't care and succeeds; the failure
lands a layer later at `rsbuild build`, reading as a TypeScript error rather
than a missing file:

    × Tsconfig not found /monorepo/tsconfig.base.json

The ten service Dockerfiles were fine, and the split is structural rather than
careless. Services carry a self-contained tsconfig.json and copy it; they extend
nothing. The frontends inherit from a root file outside everything they copy. So
"does this Dockerfile copy a tsconfig?" answers yes for all sixteen, and the six
broken ones are broken by what they never reach for — a per-file audit finds
nothing, and only an actual build finds it.

Verified with a real `docker build` of each of the six images, not by reading
the diff. All six now build clean and produce their dist output.

Files changed:
- shell/Dockerfile
- apps/chat/Dockerfile
- apps/corpora-curator/Dockerfile
- apps/org-workbench/Dockerfile
- apps/search-and-add/Dockerfile
- apps/search-results/Dockerfile
- changelog/2026-08-15_01_Every-Frontend-Deploy-Had-Been-Failing-For-Twelve-Days-On-One-Missing-COPY.md

Two gaps this does NOT close, both logged in the changelog: a failed deploy is
invisible because the old container keeps serving, and nothing builds these
images in CI — `pnpm build` on a laptop passes because tsconfig.base.json is
sitting right there on disk, so the Docker build only ever ran in production.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PZJvZWco3z7SR2dEhFqEjA

Author: mpstaton

apps/chat/Dockerfile

@@ -12,6 +12,10 @@ WORKDIR /monorepo
 RUN corepack enable
 
 COPY package.json pnpm-lock.yaml pnpm-workspace.yaml ./
+# Every app tsconfig `extends: ../../tsconfig.base.json`. Without it in the
+# image the build dies at `Tsconfig not found /monorepo/tsconfig.base.json` —
+# which is what every frontend deploy has been doing since 2026-08-03.
+COPY tsconfig.base.json ./
 COPY packages ./packages
 COPY apps ./apps
 COPY shell ./shell

apps/corpora-curator/Dockerfile

@@ -12,6 +12,10 @@ WORKDIR /monorepo
 RUN corepack enable
 
 COPY package.json pnpm-lock.yaml pnpm-workspace.yaml ./
+# Every app tsconfig `extends: ../../tsconfig.base.json`. Without it in the
+# image the build dies at `Tsconfig not found /monorepo/tsconfig.base.json` —
+# which is what every frontend deploy has been doing since 2026-08-03.
+COPY tsconfig.base.json ./
 COPY packages ./packages
 COPY apps ./apps
 COPY shell ./shell

apps/org-workbench/Dockerfile

@@ -11,6 +11,10 @@ WORKDIR /monorepo
 RUN corepack enable
 
 COPY package.json pnpm-lock.yaml pnpm-workspace.yaml ./
+# Every app tsconfig `extends: ../../tsconfig.base.json`. Without it in the
+# image the build dies at `Tsconfig not found /monorepo/tsconfig.base.json` —
+# which is what every frontend deploy has been doing since 2026-08-03.
+COPY tsconfig.base.json ./
 COPY packages ./packages
 COPY apps ./apps
 COPY shell ./shell

apps/search-and-add/Dockerfile

@@ -10,6 +10,10 @@ WORKDIR /monorepo
 RUN corepack enable
 
 COPY package.json pnpm-lock.yaml pnpm-workspace.yaml ./
+# Every app tsconfig `extends: ../../tsconfig.base.json`. Without it in the
+# image the build dies at `Tsconfig not found /monorepo/tsconfig.base.json` —
+# which is what every frontend deploy has been doing since 2026-08-03.
+COPY tsconfig.base.json ./
 COPY packages ./packages
 COPY apps ./apps
 COPY shell ./shell

apps/search-results/Dockerfile

@@ -10,6 +10,10 @@ WORKDIR /monorepo
 RUN corepack enable
 
 COPY package.json pnpm-lock.yaml pnpm-workspace.yaml ./
+# Every app tsconfig `extends: ../../tsconfig.base.json`. Without it in the
+# image the build dies at `Tsconfig not found /monorepo/tsconfig.base.json` —
+# which is what every frontend deploy has been doing since 2026-08-03.
+COPY tsconfig.base.json ./
 COPY packages ./packages
 COPY apps ./apps
 COPY shell ./shell

changelog/2026-08-15_01_Every-Frontend-Deploy-Had-Been-Failing-For-Twelve-Days-On-One-Missing-COPY.md

@@ -0,0 +1,125 @@
+---
+date_created: 2026-08-15
+date_modified: 2026-08-15
+title: "Every frontend deploy had been failing for twelve days on one missing COPY"
+lede: "Production was serving a build from August 3rd. Every deploy since had failed at the same line, in all six frontend Dockerfiles, for the same reason — and nothing was watching."
+publish: true
+authors:
+  - Michael Staton
+augmented_with:
+  - Claude Code on Claude Opus 5
+files_changed:
+  - shell/Dockerfile
+  - apps/chat/Dockerfile
+  - apps/corpora-curator/Dockerfile
+  - apps/org-workbench/Dockerfile
+  - apps/search-and-add/Dockerfile
+  - apps/search-results/Dockerfile
+tags:
+  - Augment-It
+  - Deployment
+  - Docker
+  - Debugging
+  - Build-Pipeline
+---
+
+# Every frontend deploy had been failing for twelve days
+
+## Why Care?
+
+We went looking for something else entirely — confirming which environment
+variable names a service still supplied, during a rename — and found that the
+service had not deployed successfully since **2026-08-03**. Four consecutive
+failures. The most recent one was the release commit.
+
+Nothing was broken on the site, which is exactly why nobody noticed: the last
+good container kept serving. A failed deploy on this setup is silent. The old
+build just keeps running, the URL keeps answering, and the only evidence is a
+red entry in a dashboard nobody had open.
+
+The cause was one missing line, in six files, and it had been wrong the whole
+time.
+
+## What's New?
+
+Every frontend Dockerfile now copies `tsconfig.base.json` into the build image.
+That's the entire fix:
+
+```dockerfile
+COPY package.json pnpm-lock.yaml pnpm-workspace.yaml ./
+COPY tsconfig.base.json ./          # ← this
+COPY packages ./packages
+COPY apps ./apps
+COPY shell ./shell
+```
+
+All six frontends — `shell`, `chat`, `corpora-curator`, `org-workbench`,
+`search-and-add`, `search-results` — now build clean, verified with a real
+`docker build` of each rather than by reading the diff.
+
+## How we found it
+
+The build log ends like this:
+
+```
+[build 9/9] RUN pnpm --filter @augment-it/strategy-curator build
+> rsbuild build
+
+error   Build errors:
+  × Tsconfig not found /monorepo/tsconfig.base.json
+
+File: @module-federation/runtime/rspack.js:1:1-236
+  × Tsconfig not found /monorepo/tsconfig.base.json
+```
+
+Every app's `tsconfig.json` is three lines:
+
+```json
+{ "extends": "../../tsconfig.base.json", "include": [...], "exclude": [...] }
+```
+
+The Dockerfiles copy `package.json`, the lockfile, the workspace manifest,
+`packages/`, `apps/` and `shell/`. They never copied the file every one of those
+tsconfigs extends. `pnpm install` succeeds — it doesn't care. The failure lands
+one layer later, at `rsbuild build`, and reads as a TypeScript problem rather
+than a missing-file problem.
+
+## Under the Hood: the split that hid it
+
+The interesting part is that **the ten service Dockerfiles were fine**. Only the
+six frontends were broken, and the reason is structural rather than careless.
+
+| | tsconfig shape | Build context |
+|---|---|---|
+| `services/*` | own self-contained `tsconfig.json`, extends nothing | its own directory |
+| `shell`, `apps/*` | three-line stub extending `../../tsconfig.base.json` | the repo root |
+
+Services copy `tsconfig.json` and are done — that file is complete on its own.
+The frontends inherit from a root file that lives outside anything they copy. So
+"does this Dockerfile copy a tsconfig?" returns **yes** for all sixteen, and the
+six that are broken are broken by what they *don't* reach for.
+
+A per-file audit finds nothing. Only building one finds it.
+
+## What this says about the setup
+
+Two things worth fixing beyond the one line:
+
+**A failed deploy is invisible.** The previous container keeps serving, the
+health check keeps passing, and the dashboard is the only place the failure is
+recorded. Twelve days is how long that stayed unnoticed while active work
+shipped daily.
+
+**Nothing builds the containers in CI.** `pnpm build` on a developer machine
+works, because `tsconfig.base.json` is right there on disk. The Docker build is
+the only place the missing COPY exists, and it only ran in production. A build
+of each image on PR would have caught this the day it was introduced.
+
+Neither is fixed here. Both are logged.
+
+## What's Next
+
+The immediate consequence: the deployed frontends are twelve days stale. Once
+this merges, the next deploy will be the first successful one since August 3rd —
+so it will ship twelve days of accumulated change at once. Worth watching rather
+than assuming.

shell/Dockerfile

@@ -14,6 +14,10 @@ WORKDIR /monorepo
 RUN corepack enable
 
 COPY package.json pnpm-lock.yaml pnpm-workspace.yaml ./
+# Every app tsconfig `extends: ../../tsconfig.base.json`. Without it in the
+# image the build dies at `Tsconfig not found /monorepo/tsconfig.base.json` —
+# which is what every frontend deploy has been doing since 2026-08-03.
+COPY tsconfig.base.json ./
 COPY packages ./packages
 COPY apps ./apps
 COPY shell ./shell