Mako Refinery is a content-and-commerce platform built for branded vertical storefronts that need more than a Shopify theme — passkey auth on the customer side, OpenRouter-driven AI chat with per-user credit metering, real USPS rate calculation at checkout, age-verified product gates, lab-report attachments per batch, and a full articles CMS so the same instance ships the storefront, the marketing site, and the back-office tooling.

Customer-facing

• Passkey-first auth. WebAuthn is the primary login path (server-side go-webauthn, browser @simplewebauthn); the autofill ceremony surfaces saved credentials on supported browsers, with a fallback flow for those that don't.
• Storefront with category browsing — All Products, sub-categories, filtering, age-gated detail pages, product images, lab reports, batch numbers.
• USPS-integrated checkout. Shipping zones define geographical bands; carriers and services define rate options; the cart calls the live USPS API at checkout and shows real numbers, with configurable markup. Fallback rates kick in when the API is unavailable.
• AI chat assistant available to logged-in customers — OpenRouter under the hood over a WebSocket, multi-model support, credit metering, "AI is typing" status, persistent conversations.

Admin / operator surface

• Dashboard, products, orders, articles, lab reports, tax groups, coupons — full CRUD on every merchandising primitive, with decimal-precise pricing.
• Shipping configurator — carriers (UPS, USPS, custom), services per carrier, geographical zones, pricing markup, USPS API credential management.
• Payment methods — bank wire, card, custom payment instructions, per-method enable/disable.
• Site controls — basic info + branding, maintenance-mode toggle with custom message and auto-reopen schedule, registration toggles, contact email.
• AI model management — sync models, adjust per-user credits, configure OpenRouter API keys, monitor usage limits.
• Mail system — Postmark send + inbound webhook, templated transactional email, API-key management.

How it's wired

The backend is Go (chi router + CORS) exposing a JSON API, WebAuthn ceremonies, and a chat WebSocket, backed by PostgreSQL (pgx/lib-pq, schema + migrations + PL/pgSQL). QR codes and lab-report label images are generated server-side. The front end is a React + Vite single-page app (JavaScript, Tailwind). In production the Go binary runs as a systemd service behind nginx (TLS 1.2+, rate limiting, CSP/HSTS, SameSite=Strict CSRF cookies); it was migrated off PM2 to systemd for stability.

Why "Mako Refinery"

Mako Refinery exists because regulated vertical storefronts (the "lab-report-required, age-gated, branded experience" pattern) keep needing the same five integrations — passkeys, real shipping rates, lab-report attachments, AI customer support, and an articles CMS — and none of the off-the-shelf cart frameworks ship all five cleanly. Mako Refinery is what we point at that pattern when a client shows up needing the whole stack.