🧹 Repo cleanup: committed build artifacts, dead files, and 4 competing server implementations (one crashes on startup)

[llinsss]

Summary

The repo has accumulated build output, dead files, and four competing server implementations — one of which crashes on startup because it imports modules that don't exist. This makes it genuinely hard for a new contributor to know what the app actually is.

1. Committed build output

artifacts/ (Hardhat compile output, including the full OpenZeppelin artifact tree) and cache/ are tracked in git. These are regenerated by npx hardhat compile and should be gitignored, as is standard for Hardhat projects.

• git rm -r --cached artifacts cache and add both to .gitignore

2. Dead / duplicate files

• game_old.js (14 KB) — superseded by game.js

• index-old.html — old landing page

• welcome.html — byte-identical to index-old.html (verify with cmp welcome.html index-old.html)

• login-complex.html (20 KB) — the pre-fcb8b08 login flow, no longer referenced

• auth-demo.html, demo-server.js, server.py, start-server.sh — overlapping ad-hoc ways to serve the same static files

• Delete dead files (they remain in git history if ever needed)

3. Four server implementations, one of them broken

File	What it is	Status
server.js	Express + JSON-file users + Resend email	works, is the real one
backend/server.js	"Full" Express app	crashes on require: imports ./routes/game, ./routes/achievements, ./middleware/auth, etc. (backend/server.js:16-29) but backend/routes/ contains only auth.js and backend/middleware/ doesn't exist
demo-server.js	Minimal static server	redundant
server.py	Python static server	redundant

Decide the canonical entry point (root server.js appears to be it — package.json start script points there), then either delete backend/ or turn it into a tracked roadmap item instead of broken code.

• One documented way to run the app: npm start
• Remove or quarantine backend/ until its missing routes/middleware/services actually exist

Acceptance criteria

• Fresh clone → npm install → npm start works, and no other server files exist to confuse contributors
• git ls-files | grep -E '^(artifacts|cache)/' returns nothing
• Repo file count at root drops substantially (currently ~40 files at top level)

[grantfox-oss]

🦊 GrantFox — @paul-itodo has been assigned to this issue as part of the Official Campaign | FWC26 campaign!

Next steps:

1. Open a Pull Request referencing this issue (e.g., Closes #5)
2. Your PR will be reviewed by the DogStark maintainers

Good luck! Track your progress on GrantFox.