Decision Model

Choose a stack by constraints, not familiarity. A familiar stack that fights platform policy, distribution, or native APIs is not the simple option.

The Seven Questions

Question	Why it matters	Example signal
What is the product shape?	Prevents framework-first thinking	Static report, PWA, native app, CLI, backend, AI tool
Which platform APIs are core?	Determines when native wins	SMS, Bluetooth, file watching, notifications, widgets
Where does data live?	Avoids premature servers and sync	SQLite, files, IndexedDB, backend DB
How will users get it?	Distribution is product work	URL, Play Store, Microsoft Store, installer, package manager
What quality gate proves done?	Dev server success is not release readiness	Release build on device, packaged desktop app, offline PWA test
What can one person maintain?	Solo-dev scope beats theoretical elegance	One repo, one CI path, one runtime
What will AI get wrong?	Agent productivity depends on guardrails	UWP APIs in WinUI 3, stale Android examples, unsafe Electron defaults

Cost Of Wrongness

Some wrong choices are cheap to reverse. Others create release and data traps.

Choice	Cheap to reverse	Expensive to reverse
Static web vs SSR	Usually cheap if routing/data model is clean	Expensive if auth/session assumptions spread everywhere
PWA vs native mobile	Cheap for early prototypes	Expensive after users depend on offline/native permissions
Expo vs native	Usually manageable with development builds or prebuild	Expensive if custom native code dominates from day one
Tauri vs Electron	Moderate if UI is plain web	Expensive if Node APIs or Chromium-specific behavior define UX
Local-first vs backend	Cheap while data is local/exportable	Expensive after sync/account models ship
AI tools without sandbox	Looks cheap initially	Expensive after untrusted tools touch user workspaces

Minimum Decision Record

Use this before implementation:

Product shape:
Default stack:
Why this rung:
Avoided stacks:
Native/platform APIs required:
Data boundary:
Distribution path:
Quality gate:
Known traps:
Escape hatch:

Gotcha: “AI can generate it” is not a decision signal. AI can generate broken release paths, stale platform APIs, and unsafe tool execution just as quickly as good code.