diff --git a/CLAUDE.md b/CLAUDE.md
index d3e8212..5d56a8f 100644
--- a/CLAUDE.md
+++ b/CLAUDE.md
@@ -114,6 +114,35 @@ env vars (see `.env.example`) to reach real services — without them,
 dashboard cards degrade to "error" status individually rather than
 crashing the page.
 
+**Expect every service to be offline on the dev machine, and expect
+`/api/*` polls to 500.** The dev laptop is not on the network with the
+media stack, so Sonarr/Radarr/SABnzbd/Tautulli/Prowlarr/Ombi all refuse
+the connection: every card renders its `service_error()` state, the
+header pills all read "offline", and the browser console fills with
+`500` responses from the live-poll endpoints (`/api/sabnzbd` and
+`/api/tautulli` poll on a timer, so they repeat every few seconds).
+**This is the normal local baseline, not a regression** — don't go
+debugging it, and don't "fix" it. If you need to check whether a 500 is
+genuinely yours, stash the working tree and confirm the same response on
+a clean checkout.
+
+Because of that, the only reliable way to exercise a card's real
+(non-error) rendering locally is to monkey-patch its fetcher and run the
+app on a spare port, e.g.:
+
+```bash
+LOGIN_PASSWORD=test python3 -c "
+import app as a
+a.get_unraid_stats = lambda: {'status': 'ok', 'source': 'api', ...}
+a.app.run(host='127.0.0.1', port=5099)"
+```
+
+Two gotchas when doing this: Jinja's `auto_reload` follows `app.debug`,
+which is off, so **template edits need a server restart** — a browser
+reload alone will silently serve the cached template. And the login
+password comes from `LOGIN_PASSWORD`, so set it explicitly rather than
+hunting for the real one.
+
 ## Deployment
 
 **Target:** Unraid server, container path `/mnt/user/appdata/greendale`
diff --git a/app.py b/app.py
index 949ed06..3dbc230 100644
--- a/app.py
+++ b/app.py
@@ -20,8 +20,8 @@ urllib3.disable_warnings(urllib3.exceptions.InsecureRequestWarning)
 # Docker tab caches stale container IDs, so the footer is the reliable way
 # to confirm a `docker compose up -d --build` actually took effect.
 # Both are env-overridable if the deploy pipeline ever injects them.
-APP_VERSION = os.environ.get("APP_VERSION", "1.3.0")
-APP_VERSION_DATE = os.environ.get("APP_VERSION_DATE", "2026-08-26")
+APP_VERSION = os.environ.get("APP_VERSION", "1.4.0")
+APP_VERSION_DATE = os.environ.get("APP_VERSION_DATE", "2026-08-27")
 
 # Must point at a path that survives `docker compose up --build` — the
 # container filesystem does not. See the data volume in docker-compose.yml.