docs: record branch naming, the modal-route pattern, and two e2e timing traps

Branches follow Conventional Branch — `<type>/<description>` with types feature, bugfix, hotfix, release, chore — carrying the issue number so the work is identifiable from `git branch`. Commits stay Conventional Commits with the number appended to the subject and a `Closes #N` line in the body. Spells out which half does what, because it is easy to assume the branch name links the work: Gitea builds the reference from a `#N` in a commit message or PR and never from the branch name.

Records the backdrop-location arrangement in `AppRoutes` as the pattern the sibling navigational dead-end issues should copy rather than each inventing their own.

Adds two testing lessons that cost real time here: the 5s default expect timeout is too tight for anything waiting on a bcrypt round-trip, and the local database's accumulated junk eventually stops being harmless clutter and starts producing flake that rotates between unrelated specs on every run.

.claude/project-context.md

@@ -213,8 +213,12 @@ sudo docker exec -it redefined-designs-db-syn psql -U redefined -d redefined -c
 
 ## Conventions
 
-- **Every commit message follows [Conventional Commits](https://www.conventionalcommits.org/)**: `feat:`, `fix:`, `chore:`, `docs:`, `test:`, `ci:`, `refactor:`, etc.
-- **Never commit directly to `main`.** Always branch: `feature/<short-description>` or `fix/<short-description>`. Open a PR, merge, branch auto-deletes (repo setting is on).
+- **Never commit directly to `main`.** Always branch, open a PR, merge; the branch auto-deletes (repo setting is on).
+- **Branches follow [Conventional Branch](https://conventional-branch.github.io/), with the issue number carried for Gitea:** `<type>/<issue-number>-<short-slug>`, e.g. `feature/48-my-account-modal`, `bugfix/57-cart-total-wrong`. Types are `feature`, `bugfix`, `hotfix`, `release`, `chore` — the same `feature/` prefix this repo has always used, so nothing in the existing history is wrong. Drop the number when there is no issue behind the work (`chore/tidy-dead-routes`). The type should agree with the Conventional Commit type of the work it carries.
+- **Commits follow [Conventional Commits](https://www.conventionalcommits.org/)** — `feat:`, `fix:`, `chore:`, `docs:`, `test:`, `ci:`, `refactor:` — with the issue number appended to the subject: `feat(account): open My Account as a modal (#48)`.
+- **Put `Closes #48` in the commit body**, on its own line, for the commit that completes the issue (`Refs #48` when it only contributes). This is what actually closes the issue on merge, independently of whether the PR description repeats it.
+- **Be clear about which part does the linking.** Gitea creates the reference from a `#48` appearing in a *commit message or PR* — never from the branch name. The branch name is for humans reading `git branch`; the reference is what ties the work to the issue. Both are wanted, but only one of them links.
+- **Commit bodies are unwrapped paragraphs** — no hard line breaks inside a paragraph.
 - Local dev/editing happens in **VS Code**, pushed via **PowerShell** `git` — the NAS-side `gitc` workflow is *only* for pulling already-merged code down to deploy, never for authoring changes.
 - **Thom does the pushing.** Commit locally and stop; don't `git push` on his behalf.
 - **When work comes from a Gitea issue, post every clarifying question and its answer back to that issue as a comment** — including the options considered and why the rejected ones were rejected. The issue is the durable record; decisions made in a chat session are invisible to anyone reading it later. Post each round as the answers come in rather than batching everything to the end.
@@ -253,6 +257,8 @@ Integration tests truncate between cases (`resetDb()` in `tests/integration/setu
 - **Tables paginate.** With dozens of accumulated rows a freshly created record often isn't on page 1; `admin-taxonomy.spec.ts` confirms tag creation through the API rather than hunting for the row.
 - **Clicking a submit button only dispatches the request.** Wait for the resulting confirmation (`'Tag added'`) before querying the API, or the read races the write. This produced a one-in-four flake until fixed.
 - **`isVisible()` does not wait.** It answers about *this instant*, so guarding an optional dialog with `if (await x.isVisible())` loses the race whenever the dialog is still on its way — and an antd modal left open then intercepts every later click, which surfaces as an unrelated element "not found" thirty seconds later. If the dialog is deterministic, click it unconditionally and let the locator auto-wait; only use `isVisible()` when it genuinely may never appear, and even then give it something to wait on first.
+- **The 5s default `expect` timeout is too tight for anything waiting on a round-trip.** Registration is a bcrypt hash — about half a second unloaded, and well past 5s when the suite's workers all register at once. The failure surfaces on whichever test lost the race, so it looks like an unrelated flake that moves between runs. Give such assertions an explicit generous timeout; they are asserting *that* the server answered, not how fast.
+- **The local database's accumulated junk eventually shows up as flake, not just clutter.** At ~450 items and ~250 customers the storefront render and the parallel bcrypt load together push these round-trips past their timeouts, and the repeated runs also trip the password-reset rate limiter. When failures start rotating between unrelated specs on each run, reset the database before debugging any of them.
 - **`fullyParallel: true` means a test that mutates a shared fixture races every other test in the file.** A spec that marked an item sold broke the sibling tests reading that same item. Give any test that changes an item's state its own fixture.
 
 ## Known gaps / natural next steps
@@ -276,6 +282,7 @@ Integration tests truncate between cases (`resetDb()` in `tests/integration/setu
 - Change admin-configurable settings → `admin_settings` table + `backend/src/routes/adminSettings.ts` + `frontend/src/admin/Settings.tsx`
 - Add a new async route → wrap the handler in `asyncRoute()` from `backend/src/asyncRoute.ts`, or a failure will hang the request instead of returning 500
 - Change what an item row returns → `backend/src/itemSelect.ts` (one place, used by both the public and admin routes)
+- Change how a customer route is framed (modal vs page) → `frontend/src/main.tsx`. `AppRoutes` renders the route table against a *backdrop* location rather than the real one: `/account` is a modal over the page named in `location.state.background`, falling back to the storefront when there is none (a bookmark, an email link, a post-registration redirect). This is the pattern to copy for the sibling dead-end issues (#49, #50) — it came out of #51 — it keeps the URL real and linkable while making sure closing always lands somewhere. The link that opens it must pass `state={{ background: location }}`, or closing goes to the fallback instead of where the customer was.
 - Change storefront filtering → `backend/src/itemFilters.ts` (parsing + SQL), `backend/src/routes/filters.ts` (`/api/filters`, the drawer's single fetch), `frontend/src/filters.ts` (state, URL round-trip, tree building), `frontend/src/components/FilterDrawer.tsx`, `frontend/src/components/ActiveFilterChips.tsx`
 - Add a filter dimension that depends on who is asking → follow the favorites filter (#35). The identity comes from `req.customerId` (`attachCustomer` runs globally, so it is available on the public `/api/items` too) and is passed into `buildItemFilterSql` as an explicit argument — never parsed from the query string, or a hand-edited URL could name another customer. Each route decides what to do when it cannot satisfy the filter: the storefront answers 401, the admin inventory 400, and the builder throws rather than silently dropping the clause and returning everything.
 - Change category/tag management → `backend/src/routes/adminCategories.ts`, `backend/src/routes/adminTags.ts`, `frontend/src/admin/Categories.tsx`, `frontend/src/admin/Tags.tsx`