12 KiB
Releasing FilmCraft
Every push to the release branch runs .github/workflows/release.yml. The workflow builds
installers for macOS, Windows, Linux (AppImage, deb, rpm, tarball, Flatpak) and FreeBSD, plus
the web build, and creates or updates a draft
GitHub Release named FilmCraft v<version>. Nobody sees a draft until a maintainer publishes it.
User-facing names say FilmCraft. Files, binaries and ids stay lowercase
(filmcraft-<version>-<platform>-<arch>.<ext>, ai.storyteller.filmcraft).
Cutting a release
-
Bump the version on
main. It lives in exactly one place,[workspace.package] versionin the rootCargo.toml; every crate inherits it and the packaging scripts read it from there:cargo xtask version # prints the current version, e.g. 0.2.1 cargo xtask version set 0.3.0 # or 0.3.0-rc.1; updates Cargo.toml and Cargo.lockCommit the change (
Cargo.toml+Cargo.lock) through the normal review flow, as aRelease: FilmCraft v0.3.0commit whose message says what changed for users. -
Merge
mainintorelease(or fast-forward it) and push. The workflow starts by itself. -
Wait for the draft. When every job is done (macOS notarization is the slow part), the Releases page has a draft
FilmCraft v0.3.0, targeting the pushed commit, with every artifact andSHA256SUMS.txt. The notes are generated from the merged pull requests. -
Check it. Download an installer or two and read the job summaries. A
::warning::there means a signing secret was missing and that artifact is unsigned. -
Publish the draft in the GitHub UI. Publishing creates the
v0.3.0tag. A version with a pre-release suffix (-rc.1) is marked as a pre-release.
Pushing to release again before you publish rebuilds the same draft and replaces its assets.
Once the draft is published, the workflow refuses to touch that version again: bump it first.
Test runs: Actions › Release › Run workflow runs the whole pipeline by hand. The optional
version input (such as 0.3.0-rc.1) overrides Cargo.toml for that run only; each build job
applies it with cargo xtask version set before building. The signing jobs (macOS, Windows)
and the draft-release job run in the release environment, which only the release branch can
use, so pick that branch for a full run. Run from any other branch, it is a dry run: the jobs that
sign nothing (Linux, Flatpak, FreeBSD, web) build and upload their artifacts to the run, the
signing jobs are refused, and the draft-release job, which needs them, is skipped.
What gets built
| Platform | Artifacts | Built on |
|---|---|---|
| macOS 11+ (universal: Apple silicon and Intel) | filmcraft-<v>-macos-universal.dmg, filmcraft-cli-<v>-macos-universal.zip |
macos-15 |
| Windows x64 | filmcraft-<v>-windows-x64.msi, filmcraft-<v>-windows-x64-portable.zip |
windows-latest |
| Windows x86 (32-bit) | filmcraft-<v>-windows-x86.msi, filmcraft-<v>-windows-x86-portable.zip |
windows-latest |
| Windows on ARM64 | filmcraft-<v>-windows-arm64.msi, filmcraft-<v>-windows-arm64-portable.zip |
windows-latest (cross-compiled) |
| Linux x86_64 | filmcraft-<v>-linux-x86_64.{AppImage,deb,rpm,tar.gz} |
ubuntu-22.04 |
| Linux aarch64 | filmcraft-<v>-linux-aarch64.{AppImage,deb,rpm,tar.gz} |
ubuntu-22.04-arm |
| Linux riscv64 | filmcraft-<v>-linux-riscv64.tar.gz |
ubuntu-24.04, cross-compiled (glibc 2.39+; CLI smoke-tested under QEMU) |
| AppImage updates | filmcraft-<v>-linux-{x86_64,aarch64}.AppImage.zsync |
with the AppImage |
| Flatpak | filmcraft-<v>-linux-x86_64.flatpak, filmcraft-<v>-linux-aarch64.flatpak |
ubuntu-24.04, ubuntu-24.04-arm (repackaged Linux tarball) |
| FreeBSD 14 x86_64 | filmcraft-<v>-freebsd-x86_64.tar.gz |
FreeBSD 14.3 VM on ubuntu-latest |
| Web | filmcraft-web-<v>.zip, a static site (see packaging/web/README.md) |
ubuntu-latest |
filmcraft --version and filmcraft-cli --version print the version from Cargo.toml.
Fonts. Every build job checks out craft-fonts at a
pinned commit (the ref: of its craft-fonts checkout step, marked # bump deliberately) and builds
with CRAFT_FONTS_DIR and CRAFT_FONTS_REQUIRED=1, so releases embed its Japanese fonts and fail
rather than ship without them (the web build embeds only the UI font, to stay small). The packages
carry each embedded font's licence (copy_font_licences in packaging/env.sh). Bump the pins
deliberately, in every job at once.
macOS
packaging/macos/package.sh builds aarch64-apple-darwin and x86_64-apple-darwin with
MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=11.0, joins them with lipo and assembles FilmCraft.app:
Info.plistis generated fromInfo.plist.in(bundle idai.storyteller.filmcraft, the version and the build commit).- Signing uses the hardened runtime and a secure timestamp, with the entitlements in
entitlements.plist. The Developer ID certificate is imported into a temporary keychain bypackaging/macos/import-cert.sh. - Notarization: the app is sent with
xcrun notarytool submit, then the ticket is stapled and checked withstapler validate. The app goes on a DMG (hdiutil makehybrid), which is signed and notarized too. The universalfilmcraft-cliis signed the same way, zipped, and the zip is notarized. Its Finder window (background, icon size and positions) comes frompackaging/macos/dmg/, and its volume is namedFilmCraftwithout the version, which the window's background needs; the DMG file name keeps the version.
Locally, without certificates, the script signs ad hoc and skips notarization, which is enough to
check the bundle and the DMG on your own Mac (packaging/macos/package.sh).
Windows
packaging/windows/package.ps1 -Arch x64|x86|arm64 builds with +crt-static, so neither the MSI
nor the portable zip needs the Visual C++ redistributable.
filmcraft.wxs(WiX) is a per-machine install into Program Files with a Start Menu shortcut and an App Paths entry (Win+Rfilmcraft). Same-version upgrades are allowed, so release candidates replace each other.- The ARM64 build is cross-compiled on the x64 runner.
.github/workflows/windows-arm64.ymlinstalls that MSI on a Windows 11 ARM64 runner, runsfilmcraft-cli --versionnatively and uninstalls. - Signing:
packaging/windows/sign.ps1signs the executables and then the.msiwithsigntool, using whichever material is present: a.pfxcertificate (WINDOWS_CERTIFICATE, base64, andWINDOWS_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD) or Azure Trusted Signing (theAZURE_*secrets). With neither, it warns and leaves the files unsigned, so test builds still produce installers.
Linux
packaging/linux/package.sh builds the release binaries and packages them as an AppImage, a
.deb and an .rpm (with nfpm, from nfpm.yaml) and a plain
.tar.gz tree. The packages install both programs, the desktop entry, the AppStream metainfo, the
icons and the licence files.
The Linux tarball includes install.sh. Extract it, open a terminal in the extracted
directory and run ./install.sh to install both programs and their desktop integration
under ~/.local (no administrator permissions needed). The application-menu entry uses
the installed binary's absolute path; add ~/.local/bin to PATH for terminal commands.
Run the installer again to update. For a system-wide installation, use
sudo ./install.sh --prefix /usr/local. A custom absolute --prefix is also supported;
its share directory must be in the desktop's data search path to appear in the menu.
Prefixes containing =, % or control characters are rejected for desktop-launcher compatibility.
The jobs run on ubuntu-22.04, the oldest GitHub-hosted image, so the binaries only need
glibc 2.35 or newer: Ubuntu 22.04+, Debian 12+, Fedora 36+ and RHEL 10. The deb (libc6 (>= 2.35))
and the rpm (glibc >= 2.35) both declare that floor, so older systems refuse the install. Moving
the job to a newer image raises the floor, so do it deliberately and update nfpm.yaml with it.
After packaging, the job prints the .deb's metadata and contents, runs ldd on the binary and
runs each AppImage with --version.
AppImage updates. Each AppImage embeds update information,
gh-releases-zsync|storytold|filmcraft|latest|filmcraft-*-linux-<arch>.AppImage.zsync, and
appimagetool writes the matching .zsync beside it (the job installs zsync for
zsyncmake). AppImageUpdate and
AppImageLauncher then fetch only the changed blocks from the newest published (non-pre-release)
release. The job checks both with --appimage-updateinformation and test -s.
Flatpak. The flatpak jobs (x86_64 on ubuntu-24.04, aarch64 on ubuntu-24.04-arm) run
packaging/linux/flatpak-bundle.sh on the Linux job's tarball: it installs the binaries with
packaging/linux/flatpak/ai.storyteller.filmcraft.bundle.yml into a single-file bundle,
filmcraft-<v>-linux-<arch>.flatpak (no Rust build, so it takes a minute), then installs it and
runs filmcraft-cli --version in the sandbox. Users install it with
flatpak install --user <file>; the freedesktop runtime comes from Flathub.
packaging/linux/flatpak/ai.storyteller.filmcraft.yml is the from-source manifest for a Flathub
submission (its header says how to build it). Both manifests must keep the same runtime and
finish-args, and install the same programs: the app and filmcraft-cli, which runs the
headless commands and the MCP server in the sandbox
(flatpak run --command=filmcraft-cli ai.storyteller.filmcraft mcp). packaging-lint checks this.
FreeBSD
GitHub has no FreeBSD runners, so the freebsd job builds in a FreeBSD 14.3 VM
(vmactions/freebsd-vm, pinned by commit) on
ubuntu-latest. packaging/freebsd/package.sh builds both programs and packs a
/usr/local-style tree as filmcraft-<v>-freebsd-x86_64.tar.gz; install it with
tar -xzf filmcraft-<v>-freebsd-x86_64.tar.gz --strip-components 1 -C /usr/local. The build needs
the packages listed in the job (winit/wgpu, GTK 3 for the file dialogs, fontconfig, and
alsa-lib for audio through cpal). .github/workflows/freebsd.yml builds and packages the same
way nightly, so a FreeBSD break shows up before a release. package.sh --dry-run checks the
tree's layout with stub binaries on any OS (packaging-lint runs it).
Web
The web job builds apps/filmcraft-web with cargo xtask web (the wasm-bindgen CLI must match
the crate's version exactly, WASM_BINDGEN in xtask/src/main.rs) and zips the static site with
packaging/web/package.sh. packaging/web/README.md covers hosting.
The draft release
The last job waits for every build, downloads their artifacts, writes SHA256SUMS.txt and creates
the draft FilmCraft v<version> with notes generated from the merged pull requests. If the draft
already exists, it replaces its assets and keeps it a draft. If that version is already published,
the job fails and asks for a version bump (cargo xtask version set).
Secrets
The macOS, Windows and draft-release jobs run in the release environment, which only the
release branch can use and which holds the signing secrets. The other jobs sign nothing and get
no secrets. Every secret is optional: a missing one produces unsigned artifacts and a
warning, never a failed build.
| Secret | Used for |
|---|---|
APPLE_CERTIFICATE, APPLE_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD, KEYCHAIN_PASSWORD |
the Developer ID certificate (base64 .p12), imported into a temporary keychain |
APPLE_ID, APPLE_PASSWORD, APPLE_TEAM_ID |
notarization (APPLE_PASSWORD is an app-specific password) |
WINDOWS_CERTIFICATE, WINDOWS_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD |
Windows signing with a .pfx |
AZURE_TENANT_ID, AZURE_CLIENT_ID, AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET, AZURE_SIGNING_ENDPOINT, AZURE_SIGNING_ACCOUNT, AZURE_CERT_PROFILE |
Windows signing with Azure Trusted Signing |