403 Error During Request

App Platform
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1

I am developing a custom Freshdesk app (Platform v3.0, FDK v9.7.0) and am being blocked by a 403 Forbidden error when my app tries to make a request to my local backend server (localhost:5000) using client.request.invokeTemplate()
I have proven the following:
-My Python Flask backend is not receiving the request. A print statement at the top of the route handler is never executed
-My Python Flask backend is correctly configured with Flask-CORS
-My manifest.json and config/requests.json are correctly configured based on the official documentation, see them below
manifest.json

{
  "platform-version": "3.0",
  "modules": {
    "common": {
      "requests": {
        "armi_server": {}
      }
    },
    "support_ticket": {
      "location": {
        "ticket_sidebar": {
          "url": "index.html",
          "icon": "styles/images/icon.svg"
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "engines": {
    "node": "18.20.8",
    "fdk": "9.7.0"
  }
}

requests.json

{
  "armi_server": {
    "schema": {
      "method": "POST",
      "protocol": "http",
      "host": "localhost:5000",
      "path": "/generate_response"
    }
  }
}

Any help is much appreciated. thank you!