Files
miniSCP/docs/build-and-release.md
T
jgamboaandClaude 30a432cd37 Fix black window on Linux + NVIDIA (WebKitGTK DMABUF renderer)
On the NVIDIA proprietary driver the app booted, logged "miniSCP started",
reported no error — and painted a completely black window, with stderr showing
"Failed to create GBM buffer of size WxH: Invalid argument" and an X11
GLXBadWindow. WebKitGTK's DMABUF renderer cannot allocate buffers there;
WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 is the upstream workaround. Pre-existing on
Linux, unrelated to the context-menu change — it just had never been looked at
because nothing on Linux had been run before.

The app CANNOT apply this to itself. WebKit reads the variable when it forks
its web process, and Bun's `process.env` writes do not propagate to child
processes (verified: a spawned child sees it unset), so setting it in
src/bun/index.ts is inert even from a module imported before `electrobun/bun`.
It has to be in the environment before the app process starts, which means
every launch path must inject it:

- scripts/linux-gpu.ts — shared `launchEnv()` helper, gated on
  /proc/driver/nvidia so Intel/AMD keep hardware compositing, and never
  overriding an explicit value from the user's environment.
- scripts/dev.ts — uses it for `bun run dev`.
- scripts/start.ts (new) — `bun run start` previously called `bunx electrobun
  dev` straight from package.json, where no env could be set; it now goes
  through a script like dev does.
- scripts/release.ts — writes a `miniSCP.sh` wrapper beside bin/launcher in the
  Linux tarball, since a packaged app goes through none of the above.

Documented in gotchas.md (including that a "does it boot?" log check does NOT
catch this — the log looks healthy) and platform-notes.md, with the smoke test
updated to require that the UI actually renders.

Verified: backend `tsc --noEmit` clean, `bun run build:ui` clean, and
`bun run start` now boots with zero GBM/GLX errors.

Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-15 14:53:22 +02:00

8.8 KiB
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Build & release

Versioning — "Build n"

Sublime-style: the version IS the commit count. scripts/gen-version.ts runs git rev-list --count HEAD + git rev-parse --short HEAD and writes the gitignored src/shared/version.gen.ts (BUILD = {number, commit, date, electrobun}). It is regenerated by postinstall and at the start of every dev/build/start/release script; committing it would bump the count it records, hence gitignored. Fresh checkouts fail tsc until bun install has run once (postinstall creates the file). BRANDING.version stays semver-shaped (0.1.<n>) for electrobun's config/updater; BRANDING.buildLabel ("Build n") is what humans see (About box, options popover).

Dev loop

  • bun run dev — gen-version → scripts/dev.ts: starts ng serve (HMR) and electrobun dev --watch, with DEV_SERVER_URL pointing the webviews at the dev server (only honored on the dev channel and only if the server answers).
  • bun run build — gen-version → Angular build → electrobun build (dev channel — fine for boot checks, NOT a release).
  • scripts/node-version-shim.ts (preloaded via bunfig.toml, root AND ui/) fakes a Node version the Angular CLI accepts under Bun. Both preloads are load-bearing.

Release builds

bun scripts/release.ts [--target mac-arm64|mac-x64|win-x64|linux-x64] (default: host). Steps: gen-version → gen-icons → Angular build → electrobun build --env=stable → copy/rename artifacts into release/<target>/miniSCP-Build<n>-<target>.*.

Facts the script encodes:

  • --env=stable is mandatory for releases — the CLI defaults to the dev channel (different app name miniSCP-dev, no distributable artifacts).
  • No OS cross-compile. The CLI builds for its host (its targets config field is unread in 1.18.1); packaging needs host tools (codesign/hdiutil on macOS, rcedit/PowerShell on Windows). Hence one script run per artifact, on the matching machine; win-x64 on a non-Windows host and linux-x64 on a non-Linux host both error out.
  • mac-x64 from the arm64 Mac (Rosetta): the script downloads electrobun's x64 CLI binary once (electrobun-cli-darwin-x64.tar.gz from the GitHub release matching the installed version, cached at ~/.cache/miniscp/electrobun-cli-x64-<ver>/) and runs it directly — Rosetta translates it, the CLI sees process.arch === "x64", downloads the dist-macos-x64 core into the electrobun package dir on first use, and packages a genuine x64 app. Note: Bun's fetch→Bun.write streaming hung on the GitHub redirect chain; the script uses curl -fsSL deliberately.
  • Core binary downloads: the installed npm package ships mac-arm64 binaries only; other dist-<os>-<arch> cores are fetched from github.com/blackboardsh/electrobun/releases at build time — network to GitHub is a build-time requirement on every fresh machine/runner.
  • Artifact shapes (stable channel, in artifacts/): macOS → stable-macos-<arch>-miniSCP.dmg + .app.tar.zst + update.json (updater feed); Windows → stable-win-x64-miniSCP-Setup.zip (self-extracting installer → %LOCALAPPDATA%) plus the script's own portable zip made from the assembled app folder under build/stable-win-x64/ (layout to confirm on the first real Windows build — the step warns instead of failing); Linux → only stable-linux-x64-miniSCP.tar.zst + update.json, i.e. the updater feed and nothing installable, so the script's .tar.gz of the assembled app folder under build/stable-linux-x64/ IS the release artifact (same best-effort warn). No AppImage/.deb/.desktop — unpack and run the miniSCP.sh wrapper the script writes beside bin/launcher (it applies the NVIDIA/DMABUF workaround, which the app cannot set for itself — see gotchas.md).
  • Linux builds need the AppIndicator dev libraries present to RUN (not to build) — see platform-notes.md; a packaged tarball started on a machine without them dies at dlopen.
  • The script filters artifacts by app name, so stale artifacts from older brandings don't get collected.

CI (Gitea Actions)

.gitea/workflows/release.yml — tag-triggered (build-*), macos + windows runner matrix, each running the same release script; inert until act_runners with those labels are registered. Needs fetch-depth: 0 (the build number is the commit count). Runner prereqs are commented in the workflow file.

Download host (site/ + Caddy)

site/ is a self-contained landing page and download host, served by Caddy on an internal box (plain HTTP :80, no domain/TLS). Deploys to /srv/miniscp/.

  • site/index.html — pure static, no JS, tinygrad-minimal. Download buttons link to fixed stable filenames (/dl/stable-macos-arm64-miniSCP.dmg, …) so the page never changes per release. Logo/screenshot <img> slots are commented in, images live in site/assets/.
  • site/Caddyfile — one flat /dl/* folder with file_server browse + range requests, and per-type Cache-Control: *.patch immutable (unique hashed names), *update.json no-cache (updater must see new versions), installers (*.dmg *.zip *.tar.zst) max-age=300 (stable names overwritten each release). Landing page has no SPA fallback → unknown paths 404. Path matcher gotcha: use suffix globs like *update.json, not */*update.json.
  • One flat folder, no per-build dirs — this layout IS electrobun's artifacts/ feed, so it doubles as the (future) updater baseUrl. Publishing = drop this machine's artifacts/stable-* into /dl/; installers overwrite in place, .patch files accumulate (never delete them, or older installs lose their incremental-update trail). Tradeoff: only the latest full installer is downloadable; old full versions are overwritten.
  • site/deploy.sh — run per build machine after scripts/release.ts; copies artifacts/stable-* and renames the build-numbered win portable zip to the stable stable-win-x64-miniSCP-portable.zip. MINISCP_DL_DIR overrides the target (stage locally, then rsync to the server).
  • release.baseUrl = https://miniscp.com/dl is set in electrobun.config.ts; miniscp.com is fronted by an external proxy for TLS (Caddy itself stays on :80 behind it). The value is baked into version.json at build time, so only builds made after it was added check for updates. With generatePatch (default true), release builds now need build-time network to miniscp.com/dl so electrobun can fetch the currently-published version to diff a .patch (the first build after enabling it has nothing to diff and just ships the full artifacts).

Auto-updater (app side)

Wired on top of the download host above. See the "Auto-updater" section in architecture.md for the runtime flow.

  • Backend (src/bun/index.ts): Updater.checkForUpdate() runs ~5s after launch and every 6h; on updateAvailable it pushes rpc.send.updateStatus({phase:"available",…}). Updater.onStatusChange streams download-progress (0–100) → updateStatus{downloading}. checkForUpdate self-guards the dev channel, so bun run dev never shows the pill.
  • RPC (src/shared/rpc.ts): requests checkForUpdate / downloadUpdate / applyUpdate (handlers in rpc-handlers.ts call the electrobun Updater); push message updateStatus.
  • UI: UpdaterService (ui/src/app/updater.service.ts) holds signals (state/version/progress); the tab-bar "update pill" (tab-bar.ts) is one accent (bg-primary) control that announces → fills as a progress bar while downloading → "Restart to apply". state is available → downloading → ready (ready derived from the downloadUpdate response). App-menu "Check for Updates…" (menu.ts) routes a check-for-updates menu action into UpdaterService.check().
  • Unsigned is fine: applyUpdate() strips the macOS quarantine xattr before relaunch, so the swapped bundle isn't Gatekeeper-blocked.

Icons

scripts/gen-icons.ts (resvg, dev-time): renders assets/logo.svg into the macOS iconset + icon.png, a multi-size assets/icon.ico (Windows installer/ taskbar, wired via electrobun.config.ts win.icon), the macOS tray template PNG from assets/tray/tray-glyph.svg, and a small colored Windows tray PNG. Rerun after touching either SVG; outputs are committed (build inputs).

electrobun config notes

electrobun.config.ts: app identity comes from BRANDING; build.bun.external must keep ["cpu-features", "*.node"] (ssh2's optional native accelerators — bundling them breaks the build; runtime falls back to pure JS); build.copy ships the Angular dist and tray assets into views://; bundleCEF: false everywhere (system WebKit / WebView2).