feat(build): inline small image assets under 1KB as data URLs

[AlphaMaleBaDI]

Closes #369

Summary

Adds support for inlining static image assets smaller than 1KB as base64 data URLs during the Metro build process.

Changes

• Added a Metro asset plugin to detect image assets below 1KB
• Inlined qualifying assets as base64 data URLs
• Preserved React Native and Expo asset registry behavior
• Added runtime asset resolution support for inlined assets
• Added automated tests covering inline and fallback behavior
• Added a tiny 68-byte PNG test asset for verification

Notes

During repository audit, no existing image assets below the 1KB threshold were found. A small test asset was added to validate the optimization path and future-proof the build pipeline for future small icons and images.

Verification

• Asset plugin registration verified
• Runtime asset resolution verified
• ESLint checks passed
• Asset inlining test suite added
• Working tree clean after implementation

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[AlphaMaleBaDI]

Investigation note:

The failing GitHub Actions checks appear unrelated to the asset inlining implementation.

All workflows fail during the dependency installation phase (npm ci) before linting, testing, bundle analysis, or performance regression validation begin.

The CI logs indicate:

"The npm ci command can only install with an existing package-lock.json or npm-shrinkwrap.json"

This suggests a repository workflow/dependency configuration issue rather than a regression introduced by this change.

The implementation itself was validated locally, including:

• Metro asset plugin registration
• Runtime asset resolution
• ESLint checks
• Asset inlining test coverage

Happy to make any requested adjustments if maintainers would like additional verification.