backend_design.txt

The backend will be a Python Flask server that handles API requests and interacts with the Airtable API. Here's an outline of the main components:

1. Dependencies:
   - Flask
   - Requests (for Airtable API calls)
   - Pandas (for data manipulation)

2. Routes:
   - GET /: Serve the main HTML page
   - POST /connect: Connect to Airtable using provided API key and base ID
   - GET /fetch_table: Fetch data from Airtable and return as JSON
   - POST /update_table: Update Airtable with modified data
   - GET /export_csv: Export current table data as CSV

3. Main functions:
   - connect_to_airtable(api_key, base_id): Establish connection to Airtable
   - fetch_table_data(table_name): Retrieve data from specified Airtable table
   - update_table_data(table_name, data): Update Airtable with modified data
   - export_to_csv(data): Convert table data to CSV format

4. Error handling:
   - Handle API connection errors
   - Validate input data

The server will maintain a session to store the Airtable connection details and current table data.