diff --git a/api/connection.ts b/api/connection.ts
index 6446315..4bd9ef7 100644
--- a/api/connection.ts
+++ b/api/connection.ts
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 import { db } from 'officerdb/db';
 import { encryptSecret, decryptSecret } from 'officerdb/crypto';
 import { eq } from 'drizzle-orm';
-import { fofosAdminConnection, type FofosAdminConnection } from '../db/schema';
+import { fofosAdminConnection, fofosAdminSettings, type FofosAdminConnection } from '../db/schema';
 import { normaliseUrl, type FofosCredentials } from './fofos-client';
 
 /**
@@ -56,10 +56,33 @@ export async function readConnection(): Promise<ConnectionView> {
 }
 
 /** Decrypted, for the client only. Never serialise the result of this. */
+/**
+ * How to reach the site's admin API — DERIVED now, not stored.
+ *
+ * ── Why there is nothing to configure ──
+ *
+ * This used to read a URL and a token somebody typed into a form. Both are now facts this plugin
+ * already holds: the development server runs on a port it chose, and `FOFOS_API_TOKEN` is a secret it
+ * generated and handed to that server at start. Asking a person to supply either would be asking them
+ * to copy a value out of one part of this plugin and into another.
+ *
+ * ── Why DEVELOPMENT and not production ──
+ *
+ * Production is a directory of files behind nginx. It has no API, no database connection and nothing
+ * listening — editing against it is not merely wrong, it is impossible. So the sections read and write
+ * the development server, and Build is what publishes. That is the shape the site's own build script
+ * already implies, and it means an edit is visible on dev immediately and public only when somebody
+ * decides it should be.
+ *
+ * Null when there is no port or no secret yet, which the panel reports as not being set up.
+ */
 export async function readCredentials(): Promise<FofosCredentials | null> {
-  const found = await row();
-  if (!found) return null;
-  return { url: found.url, token: decryptSecret(PURPOSE, found.token) };
+  const settings = (await db.select().from(fofosAdminSettings).limit(1))[0] ?? null;
+  if (!settings?.devPort || !settings.siteApiToken) return null;
+  return {
+    url: `http://127.0.0.1:${settings.devPort}`,
+    token: decryptSecret('fofos-admin', settings.siteApiToken),
+  };
 }
 
 export type SaveParams = { url: string; token?: string };
diff --git a/api/router.ts b/api/router.ts
index f481fbb..fa94fe2 100644
--- a/api/router.ts
+++ b/api/router.ts
@@ -539,10 +539,26 @@ router.get('/status', async (ctx) => {
     that answer. The path itself stays behind `/_config`, which is owner-only — this says only whether
     one has been chosen, which reveals nothing about the machine.
   */
+  /*
+    `ready` is whether the site sections can be OPENED, and it is now answerable.
+
+    It was hardcoded false for as long as there was nothing behind them: the sections proxy to the
+    site's admin API, and no address for one was ever stored. Both halves exist now — the development
+    server runs on a port this plugin chose, holding a token this plugin generated — so the question
+    became a real one and this is the answer.
+
+    It asks whether the server is ANSWERING, not whether pm2 says online. `bun --hot` survives a crash
+    at startup: the process stays up, pm2 reports online, and nothing is listening. Opening nine
+    sections onto that would make one failed boot look like nine broken screens.
+  */
+  const servers = await readServers();
+  const development = servers.find((server) => server.name === 'development');
+
   return ctx.json({
     configured: connection.configured,
     lastProbeOk: connection.lastProbeOk,
     rootSet: settings.isSet,
+    ready: development?.reachable === true,
   });
 });
 
diff --git a/web/useReady.ts b/web/useReady.ts
index 7ff5fed..050a0fa 100644
--- a/web/useReady.ts
+++ b/web/useReady.ts
@@ -19,11 +19,11 @@ import { useFofosChanged } from './channel';
  * nothing behind any of them; offering nine doors onto the same "not connected" message taught nobody
  * anything and made a setup step look like nine faults.
  *
- * ── Hardcoded false, deliberately, for now ──
+ ── It is answered by the server ──
  *
- * The shape is real and the plumbing is real: it asks `/status`, it re-asks whenever the connection
- * changes, and it reports while it is still asking. Only the final verdict is pinned, so turning the
- * gate on is one line rather than a feature.
+ * This was pinned to `false` for as long as nothing was behind the sections. What changed is not this
+ * hook: the site's admin API is served by the development server, which this plugin now starts on a
+ * port it chose with a token it generated. So there is something to ask about, and `/status` asks it.
  *
  * ── Both panels call this, so `/status` is fetched twice ──
  *
@@ -33,13 +33,13 @@ import { useFofosChanged } from './channel';
  * here rather than hidden in a wrapper. If the condition grows expensive, that is the moment to fix
  * it, not before.
  *
- * What it will become is roughly `configured && lastProbeOk` — the connection is stored AND the last
- * probe reached fofos — but "all the info needed in Administration" is not settled yet and will grow
- * past those two. That is why this returns a single boolean and not the parts: callers must not start
- * assembling their own version of the condition out of the pieces.
+ * It returns a single boolean and not the parts, and that still matters: callers must not start
+ * assembling their own version of the condition, because the condition has already changed shape once
+ * — from "a stored HTTP connection" to "the development server is answering" — and every caller that
+ * had built its own would have been quietly wrong on the day it did.
  */
 
-type Status = { configured: boolean; lastProbeOk: boolean | null; rootSet: boolean };
+type Status = { configured: boolean; lastProbeOk: boolean | null; rootSet: boolean; ready: boolean };
 
 export type Readiness = {
   /** The fofos connection works. Gates every section that READS the site. */
@@ -73,7 +73,15 @@ export const useReady = (): Readiness => {
         "you have not set this up", which is a far more alarming thing to be told and invites somebody
         to re-enter a connection that was never the problem.
       */
-      setStatus({ configured: true, lastProbeOk: null, rootSet: false });
+      /*
+        `ready: false` here, unlike `configured`, and the asymmetry is deliberate.
+
+        Being told "you have not set this up" when the request merely failed is alarming and wrong, so
+        configured stays true. But OPENING nine sections onto a server we could not confirm is
+        answering would show nine screens that each fail on their own — the honest read of "cannot
+        tell" is to keep them shut and let the next poll open them.
+      */
+      setStatus({ configured: true, lastProbeOk: null, rootSet: false, ready: false });
     }
   }, []);
 
@@ -81,10 +89,18 @@ export const useReady = (): Readiness => {
     void check();
   }, [check, signal]);
 
-  // ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-  // The gate. Replace `false` with the real condition — nothing else here has to change.
-  // ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-  const ready = false;
+  /*
+    The gate, and it is the server's answer rather than one assembled here.
+
+    It was `false` for as long as there was nothing behind the sections. The server now knows: the
+    development server is what serves the site's admin API, so `ready` is whether that is ANSWERING —
+    not whether pm2 says online, because `bun --hot` stays alive after a startup crash and would have
+    made one failed boot look like nine broken screens.
+
+    Computed there and not here on purpose. The note above says callers must not assemble their own
+    version out of the parts, and that applies to this hook too: one place decides, everything reads it.
+  */
+  const ready = status?.ready ?? false;
 
   return { ready, rootSet: status?.rootSet ?? false, loading: status === null };
 };