A Space is an app and a repository

Gradio, Streamlit, React, Vue, Next.js, FastAPI, and an ordinary Node server disagree about almost everything except one fact: they can all listen on a port inside a container.

That is enough for OpenFace.

The common contract stays small

Each Space is a Forgejo repository with a Dockerfile. The container must expose its web application on the expected internal port and remain usable behind a path-aware reverse proxy. The repository can carry source, assets, dependencies, documentation, and history in the structure native to its framework.

OpenFace does not translate a Next.js project into a Gradio configuration or flatten a Vue app into static metadata. The Dockerfile remains the executable description.

The card and the app tell different parts of the truth

The catalog card answers discovery questions: What does this do? Who owns it? Is it running? Which tags describe it? How many people viewed or liked it?

The repository answers maintenance questions: Which commit produced it? What dependencies does it install? How is it reviewed? Can another environment rebuild it?

The embedded app answers the final question: does the software actually work?

Treating all three as one Space prevents the familiar failure where a polished catalog points to a stale or generic demo.

CPU-first is a useful constraint

The sample catalog avoids ZeroGPU and required GPU runtimes. That keeps the reference environment reproducible on a normal Docker host and makes startup behavior, resource limits, and failure messages easier to reason about. GPU support can be added deliberately; it is not smuggled into the baseline.

For the exact Docker contract and supported examples, continue to the Spaces guide or inspect the runtime knowledge node.