Dev Diary #3: Update April 2, 2026

Developer Diary
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Over the past two weeks, the project moved from architecture-heavy groundwork into a more operational phase: packaging, release automation, installer hardening, and production naming all saw substantial progress. At the same time, core product work kept moving forward, especially in actual cost import, theme resolution, work package planning, and the month-end EV build. The result is a codebase that is not just expanding in capability, but getting much closer to something that can be installed, released, and supported with fewer manual workarounds.

A second theme was consolidation. Several large documentation and review passes brought specs, ledgers, and build notes into a more synchronized state, while the UX/WebView2 direction got more explicit architectural treatment. In practical terms, this period looks like the team taking hard-won implementation knowledge from a messy first commercial push and turning it into repeatable build, release, and platform rules.

  • Completed the major Actual Cost Import and Theme Resolution Engine build, including a large integration pass across product code and tests.

  • Landed the Work Package Planning implementation for CAP-05 along with the supporting SRA specification work.

  • Marked the Month-End EV build complete, with follow-on EVM integration fixes and general platform hardening.

  • Added installer packaging and release automation foundations, moving the project closer to a repeatable shipping path.

  • Spent significant effort stabilizing DigiCert signing in CI, including multiple iterations around smctl, KSP behavior, credential persistence, diagnostic logging, and fail-fast signature validation.

  • Resolved WiX installer issues for per-user deployment, including component GUID handling, registry key paths, and cleanup behavior.

  • Fixed MSI launch conditions by switching from shim-prone Windows version detection to registry-based build checks.

  • Corrected Office 365 detection in the installer by forcing native 64-bit registry lookup, addressing launch-condition failures on Microsoft 365 Enterprise installs.

  • Standardized the production VSTO add-in registration name to ProjectXL, separating production identity from debug registration.

  • Hardened GitHub release publication with pre-flight checks for PAT, repository, and branch state, and simplified the release path toward API-only publication.

  • Corrected release automation edge cases such as GitHub 422 failures, tag/branch sync assumptions, PowerShell 5.1 response handling, and function app naming.

  • Expanded license-management work with deactivation flow improvements, machine-count warnings, and dialog/link refinements.

  • Added and refined UX architecture documentation, including execution-layer rules, WebView2 integration guidance, and a new WebView2 console design-system note.

  • Finalized or advanced several governance artifacts, including structural import review work, system configuration and LLM instruction governance docs, and broader review-ledger/status synchronization to Reviewed - Ready.

  • Added supporting visual/design assets, including new wheel image files, to back the newer UX and shell-host work.