Define demo at module scope so HF Space's hot-reload launcher applies theme+css

app.py

@@ -4408,16 +4408,17 @@ def build_app() -> gr.Blocks:
         input_background_fill="#251d2e",
     )
 
+    # Gradio 6 prefers theme + css on launch(), but HF Space's launcher
+    # imports the module and runs its own launch() with defaults — anything
+    # we set on our own launch() call is bypassed there. So we pass these
+    # to gr.Blocks() despite the deprecation warning; that's the only path
+    # Gradio actually reads on HF Space.
     with gr.Blocks(
+        theme=_apprentice_theme,
+        css=composed_css,
         title="The Apprentice",
         analytics_enabled=False,
     ) as demo:
-        # Gradio 6 moved theme + css from Blocks() to launch() (verified by the
-        # boot warning + TypeError chain on 2026-06-15). We stash both on the
-        # demo object so main() can hand them to launch() without threading
-        # extra positional args through.
-        demo._apprentice_theme = _apprentice_theme
-        demo._apprentice_css = composed_css
         state = gr.State(initial_state)
         trial_substate = gr.State(TRIAL_STATE_AWAIT)
 
@@ -4982,29 +4983,31 @@ def run_self_test() -> int:
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # Entry point
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+#
+# On HF Spaces, Gradio's launcher imports app.py as a module and looks for a
+# top-level ``demo`` variable to serve. If it doesn't find one, it falls back
+# to its own ``.launch()`` with DEFAULT settings — which means everything we
+# pass to ``demo.launch(...)`` below would be ignored (no theme, no css, no
+# ssr_mode=False, no allowed_paths). So we build the demo at module scope.
+#
+# To keep --self-test fast (it doesn't need a Blocks instance, and building
+# one base64-encodes ~30 sprites), we skip the eager build when the flag is
+# present.
+
+if "--self-test" in sys.argv:
+    demo = None
+else:
+    demo = build_app()
 
 
 def main() -> int:
     if "--self-test" in sys.argv:
         return run_self_test()
-    demo = build_app()
-    # Off-Brand sweep: suppress the "Use via API" sidebar + analytics
-    # so the rendered page doesn't leak Gradio chrome. ``quiet=True``
-    # would suppress the "Running on http://..." console banner, which
-    # is useful info — leave it on.
+    # Local entry point — uses the module-level ``demo`` so the local run
+    # matches the HF Space behavior exactly.
     demo.launch(
         server_name="0.0.0.0",
         server_port=7860,
-        # BISECT 1: theme + css temporarily disabled to see if the custom
-        # theme or the 2000 lines of bespoke CSS is what's breaking Gradio 6's
-        # iframe rendering. If the page renders without these, we know which
-        # layer to fix. Once we find it, restore both.
-        # theme=getattr(demo, "_apprentice_theme", None),
-        # css=getattr(demo, "_apprentice_css", None),
-        # Gradio 6 enables SSR by default (a Node.js proxy in front of the
-        # Python ASGI app). SSR hydration fails inside HF's Space iframe and
-        # leaves the App tab blank — same symptom that hit us on Gradio 5.
-        # Force classic client-rendering so the iframe loads cleanly.
         ssr_mode=False,
         allowed_paths=[str(_HERE / "assets")],
         show_error=True,