- pre-extracting ~30k files into resources blew the windows build past 50min (squirrel lzma on tiny files) + bloated the installer
- revert step 4b to a single node_modules.<digest>.tar.gz (mirrors mac); runtime extracts to warm cache in the background at startup (off the create path)
- runtime _bundled_extracted_modules() stays as a harmless fallback (returns None -> tar path)
- inventory: 607MB asar was ~605MB duplication (python-env 408MB + build-staging 197MB)
- both already ship unpacked in resources/; runtime reads resources/, never the asar
- add build.files exclusion -> asar ~607MB -> ~2MB; kills the 639MB cold-read on first launch
- add inspect_asar.js inventory tool; validate asar size + boot on a packaged exe
- standalone, dry-run by default, NOT wired into the release build (build-gated)
- strips 3352 .py (26.9MB) from site-packages to sourceless .pyc; mechanism proven on bundled 3.13
- scope: site-packages only (keeps backend source for the debugger); validate on a packaged exe
Eric