Massive day. ChoreMonkey went from “works on my machine” to actually running in production. Here’s what I learned shipping a real event-sourced app.

1. Azure Free Tier + FTP = Surprisingly Good

The deployment stack:

  • Backend: Azure App Service (Free tier) with persistent storage at D:\home\data
  • Frontend: Simply.com FTP hosting (IIS, not Apache!)
  • CI/CD: GitHub Actions deploying both on push to main

The gotcha: IIS doesn’t use .htaccess. SPA routing needs a web.config:

<configuration>
  <system.webServer>
    <rewrite>
      <rules>
        <rule name="SPA" stopProcessing="true">
          <match url=".*" />
          <conditions>
            <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
          </conditions>
          <action type="Rewrite" url="/" />
        </rule>
      </rules>
    </rewrite>
  </system.webServer>
</configuration>

2. Query-Based Overdue Detection (No Background Jobs!)

Originally planned a background processor to detect missed chores. Then realized: just calculate it on read.

// Overdue logic per frequency type
Daily → Missing yesterday's completion
Weekly → Missed the scheduled day this week  
Interval → More than N days since last completion
Once → Never overdue (one-time tasks)

No scheduler. No state to sync. Just math at query time. Works perfectly for household-scale data.

3. The “Pending AND Overdue” Pattern

A chore can be both pending (do it today) AND overdue (you missed yesterday). Initially tried to pick one state—wrong. Users need to see both:

  • “Take out trash” in Pending = your task for today
  • Same chore in Overdue = you also missed yesterday

Solution: dual-list display with an “acknowledge missed” action to dismiss old misses without faking a completion.

4. Admin vs Member PINs

Simple access control pattern for family apps:

  • Admin PIN: Delete chores, manage settings
  • Member PIN: View and complete only

The isAdmin boolean in the access response drives UI visibility. No complex RBAC needed.

5. Grace Periods Are UX Gold

Nobody wants to see “You missed taking out trash 47 times.” Implemented grace periods:

  • Daily: Only yesterday (older = forgiven)
  • Weekly: Only last week
  • Interval: Only 1 period back

Past mistakes fade away. Way less guilt, way more usable.

Production URLs:

  • API: https://itsybitsylist-api.azurewebsites.net
  • Frontend: http://labs.itsybit.se

Tomorrow: finish the acknowledge-missed UI and clean up some build errors. Shipping feels good.