Remove staging basic-auth wall — box is LAN-only

Staging runs on a private-network VM, not reachable from outside, so the
HTTP basic-auth layer was unnecessary defense-in-depth. Removing it also
lets the Caddyfile drop the render-around-Compose workaround entirely
(that workaround existed specifically because Compose's interpolation
mangles a bcrypt hash) — the noindex header and blog_public=0 stay, since
those guard against search-engine indexing, a separate concern from
network-level access.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

.env.example

@@ -7,9 +7,7 @@
 # compose passes these into containers via ${VAR} interpolation, which will
 # silently mangle a value containing `$` followed by a letter (it tries to
 # resolve it as another variable and blanks it out if unset). Avoid `$` in
-# these specific values, or double it ($$) if you must use one. This does
+# these specific values, or double it ($$) if you must use one.
-# NOT apply to STAGING_BASIC_AUTH_HASH below — that one's wired through
-# env_file instead specifically so a bcrypt hash's `$` signs are safe.
 
 # --- Site ---
 # (WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE is NOT set here — it's hardcoded per environment in
@@ -30,12 +28,6 @@ DB_PASSWORD=changeme
 DB_ROOT_PASSWORD=changeme
 WP_TABLE_PREFIX=wp_
 
-# --- Staging only: basic-auth wall + noindex ---
-# Generate the hash with:
-#   docker run --rm caddy:2-alpine caddy hash-password --plaintext 'your-password'
-STAGING_BASIC_AUTH_USER=staging
-STAGING_BASIC_AUTH_HASH=
-
 # --- Backups (deploy/backup.sh) ---
 BACKUP_DIR=./backups
 BACKUP_REMOTE=

.gitignore

@@ -3,7 +3,6 @@
 !/.env.example
 
 /backups/
-/docker/caddy/.generated/
 vendor/
 node_modules/
 *.log

README.md

@@ -44,17 +44,17 @@ drops into the app container.
 
 ```
 cp .env.example .env.staging
-# fill in SITE_DOMAIN, SITE_URL, DB_*, and:
+# fill in SITE_DOMAIN, SITE_URL, DB_*
-docker run --rm caddy:2-alpine caddy hash-password --plaintext 'pick-a-password'
-# -> paste result into STAGING_BASIC_AUTH_HASH
 
 make deploy ENV=staging
 ```
 
-Staging is `noindex`'d and sits behind HTTP basic auth (Caddyfile.staging)
+Staging is `noindex`'d (`blog_public=0` plus the `X-Robots-Tag` header in
-in addition to `blog_public=0` — two independent reasons search engines and
+Caddyfile.staging) so search engines won't index it — there's no basic-auth
-random visitors won't see it, per the launch gate. Mail never leaves the
+wall on top of that, since this box is LAN-only and not reachable from
-box: it's caught by MailHog, viewable at `:8025`.
+outside. If that ever changes (a public domain, port-forwarding, etc.),
+basic-auth is worth adding back before that happens, not after. Mail never
+leaves the box: it's caught by MailHog, viewable at `:8025`.
 
 ### Theme: Blocksy + the Book Store starter site
 

deploy/deploy.sh

@@ -32,19 +32,6 @@ WP_ADMIN_EMAIL="$(env_get "$ENV_FILE" WP_ADMIN_EMAIL)"
 # reuse dev's db_data volume/credentials the first time this ran).
 COMPOSE="docker compose -p bookstore-${ENVIRONMENT} -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.${ENVIRONMENT}.yml --env-file ${ENV_FILE}"
 
-if [[ "$ENVIRONMENT" == "staging" ]]; then
-  echo "==> rendering Caddyfile.staging (basic-auth hash bypasses compose entirely)"
-  mkdir -p docker/caddy/.generated
-  AUTH_USER="$(env_get "$ENV_FILE" STAGING_BASIC_AUTH_USER)"
-  AUTH_HASH="$(env_get "$ENV_FILE" STAGING_BASIC_AUTH_HASH)"
-  : "${AUTH_USER:?set STAGING_BASIC_AUTH_USER in ${ENV_FILE}}"
-  : "${AUTH_HASH:?set STAGING_BASIC_AUTH_HASH in ${ENV_FILE} — see .env.example for how to generate it}"
-  TEMPLATE="$(cat docker/caddy/Caddyfile.staging)"
-  TEMPLATE="${TEMPLATE//__STAGING_BASIC_AUTH_USER__/$AUTH_USER}"
-  TEMPLATE="${TEMPLATE//__STAGING_BASIC_AUTH_HASH__/$AUTH_HASH}"
-  printf '%s\n' "$TEMPLATE" > docker/caddy/.generated/Caddyfile.staging
-fi
-
 echo "==> building and starting ${ENVIRONMENT}"
 $COMPOSE up -d --build
 

docker-compose.staging.yml

@@ -16,14 +16,10 @@ services:
     ports:
       - "80:80"
       - "443:443"
-    # SITE_DOMAIN is safe to pass through normally (no `$` in a domain name).
-    # STAGING_BASIC_AUTH_USER/HASH are NOT passed via compose at all — see
-    # the comment in docker/caddy/Caddyfile.staging for why; deploy.sh
-    # renders them directly into the mounted file below instead.
     env_file:
       - .env.staging
     volumes:
-      - ./docker/caddy/.generated/Caddyfile.staging:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile:ro
+      - ./docker/caddy/Caddyfile.staging:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile:ro
       - wp_core:/var/www/html:ro
       - wp_uploads:/var/www/html/wp-content/uploads:ro
       - wp_themes:/var/www/html/wp-content/themes:ro

docker/caddy/Caddyfile.staging

@@ -2,18 +2,8 @@
 	encode gzip
 
 	# Launch gate: "No staging URLs are publicly indexed." Belt-and-suspenders
-	# with wp_option blog_public=0, which deploy.sh sets on staging.
+	# with wp_option blog_public=0, which deploy.sh sets on staging. No
-	#
+	# basic-auth wall — this box is LAN-only, not reachable from outside.
-	# The two tokens below are substituted by deploy.sh directly (bash string
-	# replacement), not by Caddy's {$VAR} or docker compose's ${VAR} — a
-	# bcrypt hash contains `$identifier`-looking substrings that Compose's
-	# own interpolation will silently corrupt if this value ever passes
-	# through it (confirmed: both `environment:` and `env_file:` are
-	# affected). This file is a tracked template; deploy.sh renders it into
-	# docker/caddy/.generated/Caddyfile.staging, which is what's mounted.
-	basic_auth {
-		__STAGING_BASIC_AUTH_USER__ __STAGING_BASIC_AUTH_HASH__
-	}
 	header X-Robots-Tag "noindex, nofollow, noarchive"
 
 	root * /var/www/html