Serve Is for Browsing. Replay Is for Qualification.
Two useful commands with different promises, evidence, and browser ownership.
Scope: Engineering or methodology note based on a September 17, 2026 snapshot. Source-level behavior is not a public availability or universal compatibility claim. Any scenarios are illustrative, not customer outcomes.
A local URL can be useful without being a qualification result. That is the central distinction between KodeCapture’s serving and replay paths.
The current source exposes both because they serve different jobs. kc serve makes a validated cassette available for manual browsing. kc replay performs a bounded, guarded browser journey and evaluates the evidence required by that supported qualification path.
A server startup is not a browser observation
Serving binds a loopback engine and prints a browsing URL. It does not launch Chromium or emit a qualification certificate. Its startup status explicitly says qualification is false.
That means an operator opening the URL in an ordinary browser is inspecting the replay, not reproducing the entire isolated qualification environment. The loopback server does not forward unmatched requests to the origin, but the ordinary browser does not inherit the guarded qualification browser’s network protection.
Qualification owns more of the lifecycle
The replay path loads exact sealed authority, establishes network interception before navigation, independently observes the supported checkpoints, and closes the browser and replay resources it created. Cleanup must complete before qualification authority is provided.
Unsupported journey shapes, missing evidence, and incomplete network coverage cannot be treated as a passing result merely because the page appeared. The command needs the conditions that make the observation meaningful.
Keep the labels visible in a demonstration
A screenshot of a locally served page should be labeled as manual browsing. A zero exit after stopping the server means the serving process stopped successfully; it is not replay qualification. The separate replay command is the relevant path for that claim.
The distinction also applies to candidate preview. kc serve can show an editable KodeBack candidate, but preview controls do not create parity evidence or change a saved comparison contract.
This article describes the September source snapshot. KodeCapture remains an installed-product candidate under construction, with external access discussed through a design-partner route rather than a blanket public-alpha promise.
For engineers, the practical question is simple: who owned the browser, the network boundary, the observations, and cleanup? A useful local preview is one answer. A bounded qualification run is another. Both belong in the product, and neither should borrow the other’s authority.
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