Problem

Running cao-server in production mode returns 404 at http://localhost:9889/ unless it's launched from inside a cloned copy of the repo via uv run. The REST API works; only the static UI is missing. Users who install CAO via uv tool install git+https://... hit this immediately — the documented "Option B: Production mode" workflow silently fails for them.

Root cause: src/cli_agent_orchestrator/api/main.py resolves the static-file directory with a __file__-relative path walk that only lands on a real web/dist/ when the package is editable-installed inside the original repo:

WEB_DIST = Path(__file__).parent.parent.parent.parent / "web" / "dist"

The hatch wheel config at pyproject.toml only packages src/cli_agent_orchestrator/, so web/dist/ is never copied into the wheel. For any non-editable install, the 4-parent walk lands somewhere inside site-packages/ where no web/dist/ exists, the WEB_DIST.exists() guard returns False, the static mount is silently skipped, and GET / returns 404.

Proposed Solution

Move the built frontend inside the Python package so hatch naturally ships it in the wheel, and resolve the path via importlib.resources so it works identically for editable and wheel installs. Three coordinated changes:

1. Point Vite's build.outDir at src/cli_agent_orchestrator/web_ui/ so npm run build writes directly into the package tree.
2. Rewrite the static-dir resolver in api/main.py to anchor on the package via importlib.resources.files("cli_agent_orchestrator") / "web_ui", guarded on index.html existence (graceful no-op if the bundle wasn't built).
3. Tell hatch to include the (gitignored) built assets in the wheel via [tool.hatch.build].artifacts. No force-include needed — the directory already lives under the packaged tree, so artifacts alone is sufficient to un-exclude the gitignored files.

After these changes, cao-server launched from any cwd — including outside the repo — resolves the UI from inside site-packages/ and serves it. uv tool install users get the Web UI out of the box with no clone required.

Key Changes

• web/vite.config.ts — add build.outDir: '../src/cli_agent_orchestrator/web_ui' with emptyOutDir: true.
• src/cli_agent_orchestrator/api/main.py — replace the __file__-relative walk with Path(str(_pkg_files("cli_agent_orchestrator") / "web_ui")); check index.html instead of the directory to avoid false-positives on an empty web_ui/.
• pyproject.toml — add [tool.hatch.build] artifacts = ["src/cli_agent_orchestrator/web_ui/**"] so hatch ships the built bundle (gitignored) inside the wheel.
• .gitignore — add src/cli_agent_orchestrator/web_ui/ (build output stays out of git).
• README.md, web/README.md — update output-path references and drop the obsolete "requires a cloned copy of the repository" note from the production-mode section; add a rebuild snippet (npm run build + uv tool install . --reinstall) for contributors modifying the frontend.

Verification

• uv build --wheel produces a clean wheel (no duplicate-name warnings) containing cli_agent_orchestrator/web_ui/index.html + the full assets/ subtree — confirmed via unzip -l.
• uv tool install <wheel> lands assets under ~/.local/share/uv/tools/cli-agent-orchestrator/lib/python*/site-packages/cli_agent_orchestrator/web_ui/.
• cd /tmp && cao-server --port 9890 (from outside any CAO checkout) returns HTTP 200 at / and serves the bundled index.html — the original 404 is gone. /health continues to return 200, confirming API routes are unaffected.

Follow-up

Maintainers cutting releases should run cd web && npm run build before uv build --wheel to ensure the wheel contains a fresh bundle; a hatch build hook could automate this in a future PR.