0011. Progressive Web App service worker

• Status: Deprecated (retroactive) - registration removed 2021-10-14, files deleted 2022-05-25
• Date: 2021-09-20

Context and Problem Statement

Right after the restart the demo was published on GitHub Pages and was meant to be installable as a PWA.

Considered Options

Not recorded.

Decision Outcome

CRA’s Workbox template was added (src/serviceWorker.ts, src/serviceWorkerRegistration.ts, serviceWorkerRegistration.register() in index.tsx) together with public/manifest.json and app icons. Less than a month later the registration call was removed in a TypeScript clean-up, and the files were deleted with the Docker build work. Only the web manifest and icons remain (refreshed in 2024 for the Capacitor app, 0013), plus a commented-out registration snippet in index.html.

Inferred: no reason is recorded; offline caching of an LMS that depends on live API data and authenticated content gave little benefit and risked stale bundles.

The only service worker in use today is the SCORM loader (0007), which is unrelated to PWA caching.

Consequences

• Good: no stale-cache problems after deployments.
• Bad: no offline support; “installable” only via the manifest.

Evidence

• 26fc2816 2021-09-20 “pwa”; 4678cb28 2021-09-20 “Feature/pwa (#31)” - adds front/src/serviceWorker.ts, front/src/serviceWorkerRegistration.ts
• c4ec0595 2021-09-21 “pwa base” - front/package.json homepage /Front/
• c2c8d565 2021-10-14 “ts fixes (#64)” - removes serviceWorkerRegistration.register() from front/src/index.tsx
• 95408afd 2022-05-25 “docker build (#175)” - deletes both service worker files