diff --git a/api/router.ts b/api/router.ts
index 458521f..2bd4cf8 100644
--- a/api/router.ts
+++ b/api/router.ts
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 import { randomBytes } from 'node:crypto';
+import { createRouter } from '@@/create-router';
 import { createSidecarProxy } from '@@/sidecar/create-proxy';
 import { mountPrefix } from '@@/plugins/manifest';
 import { manifest } from '../manifest';
@@ -31,11 +32,20 @@ const PREFIX = `/api${mountPrefix({ appName: 'gitea', manifest })}`;
 const proxy = createSidecarProxy({ name: 'gitea', prefix: PREFIX });
 
 /**
- * Mint the frame cookie. Registered BEFORE the proxy's `/*`, because hono matches in registration order
- * and the wildcard would otherwise swallow it and forward `/session` to the sidecar, which has no such
- * route and would answer 404 — a 404 that looks exactly like the plugin being broken.
+ * OUR routes first, then the proxy's catch-all.
+ *
+ * `createSidecarProxy` registers `all('/*')` when it is CALLED, so anything added to `proxy.router`
+ * afterwards is dead — hono matches in registration order and the wildcard has already claimed
+ * everything. Both routes below were added that way at first, and the symptom was
+ * `POST /session -> 500`: forwarded to a sidecar that has no such route, reported as "internal error",
+ * and looking for all the world like the sidecar being broken.
+ *
+ * So this is a router of our own, with the proxy's mounted UNDER it at the end.
  */
-proxy.router.post('/session', (ctx) => {
+const router_ = createRouter();
+
+/** Mint the frame cookie for the iframe, which cannot carry a bearer token. */
+router_.post('/session', (ctx) => {
   const user = ctx.get('user') as { id: number } | undefined;
   if (!user) return ctx.json({ error: 'not authenticated' }, 401);
   ctx.header('set-cookie', mintFrameCookie(user.id, PREFIX));
@@ -53,7 +63,7 @@ proxy.router.post('/session', (ctx) => {
  * So this one path forwards the browser's request itself, headers and all. Everything else about the
  * plugin still goes through the shared proxy.
  */
-proxy.router.all('/_web/*', async (ctx) => {
+router_.all('/_web/*', async (ctx) => {
   const userId = frameUser(ctx.req.header('cookie') ?? null);
   // Deliberately terse. Whoever reaches this without a cookie is a stray request, not a person — the
   // panel mints one before the frame loads.
@@ -93,7 +103,10 @@ proxy.router.all('/_web/*', async (ctx) => {
   }
 });
 
-export const router = proxy.router;
+// Last, so everything above wins.
+router_.route('/', proxy.router);
+
+export const router = router_;
 
 /** Base URL of the sidecar's HTTP server, or null if it has not reported in yet. */
 export const getGiteaServerUrl = proxy.getHttpUrl;