diff --git a/src/servers/plugins/generate.ts b/src/servers/plugins/generate.ts
index 61d43012..b8a8849f 100644
--- a/src/servers/plugins/generate.ts
+++ b/src/servers/plugins/generate.ts
@@ -212,6 +212,27 @@ export async function rebuildFrontend(): Promise<BuildResult> {
       plugins: [tailwind],
       minify: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production',
       sourcemap: 'none',
+      /*
+        WITHOUT THIS A PLUGIN CAN TAKE THE WHOLE APP DOWN WITH ONE LINE.
+
+        `scripts/build/web.ts` — the platform's own bundle — defines `process.env.NODE_ENV`. This build
+        defined nothing, so any `process.*` in a plugin's frontend was emitted verbatim into a browser
+        chunk and threw `ReferenceError: process is not defined` at module evaluation. One throwing module
+        fails the whole graph, so the symptom is not a broken panel, it is a blank platform.
+
+        Reached by vendored code rather than by anyone writing Node in a component: m3e-canvas carries four
+        files from a Next.js original that read `process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_PATH`. Vendored trees stay
+        close to upstream here (see the hls.js note in CLAUDE.md), so the build is the right place to
+        absorb it — and it protects every plugin rather than the one that happened to hit it.
+
+        Both keys, and the order does not matter: the longest match wins, so `NODE_ENV` keeps its real
+        value and every other `process.env.X` becomes `({}).X`, which is `undefined` — exactly what the
+        `?? ''` in that vendored code expects. Verified against `bun build` rather than assumed.
+      */
+      define: {
+        'process.env.NODE_ENV': JSON.stringify(process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' ? 'production' : 'development'),
+        'process.env': '({})',
+      },
     });
     if (!result.success) {
       return {