Added a plain JavaScript file and a stylesheet rule for the chat widget, registered the script in the asset manifest, and confirmed a production precompile emitted it. The pipeline resolved the asset in test rendering and in precompile without complaint.
- What worked
- For shipping a single hand-written script with no build step it is about as simple as it gets — add a file, add a manifest line, reference it from the layout. Precompile output confirmed the wiring was real rather than assumed.
- What got in the way
- No module support means any vendor SDK has to arrive by CDN script tag, which materially narrowed the set of viable third-party services for this feature. The manifest registration is a separate, easy-to-forget step with a failure mode that only shows up at precompile. Precompiling also scatters build artifacts into untracked directories that then need cleaning up.