Xenolith Installer

Cross-platform installer for the Xenolith Engine SDK (and, later, Xenolith Studio). A small download that fetches host toolchains and target sysroots from the release server, verifies them, unpacks them, and keeps a registry of what is installed so it can validate and update itself.

Runs as a desktop GUI and headless on the command line — the same binary serves servers, CI, and Linux boxes without a display.

Architecture

A Cargo workspace whose logic lives entirely in a UI-agnostic core; the front-ends are thin shells over it.

crates/
  core/   Platform detection, manifest, download, verify, extract, install state.
          No UI, no network types leak out — transport & verification are traits,
          so everything is unit-testable without a network and swappable.
  cli/    Headless front-end (clap). No GTK/webkit. Runs anywhere.
  gui/    Desktop front-end (Tauri + Svelte).            [in progress]

Core modules

module	responsibility
triple	Map the running platform to a server triple; detect the native arch under Rosetta/WOW64; pick a host fallback when none exists.
dirs	Per-OS config/data/cache dirs (--prefix › $XENOLITH_HOME › OS default).
manifest	Build the catalogue (server manifest.json, or parse the FTP listing). Unsigned artifacts are dropped, never offered.
transport	Transport trait + retry that rides out flaky FTP listings; FTP impl behind the ftp feature.
verify	Verifier trait. Detached OpenPGP signatures; fails closed until the public key is pinned.
hash	SHA-256 integrity gate.
extract	.tar.xz extraction preserving permissions and symlinks.
install	Orchestrates fetch → verify → extract → atomic placement (staging dir + rename).
state	installed.json registry: record, validate, diff.
catalog	Diff remote vs installed → per-component status for the package table.
i18n	Fluent catalogues shared by CLI and GUI; locale resolution with English fallback.

CLI Quickstart

Install the CLI (macOS / Linux) — grabs the right binary for your platform and puts it on your PATH:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/XenolithEngine/xenolith-installer/main/install.sh | sh

Then, from nothing to a running Vulkan window in three commands (new and build default to the current directory — no paths to figure out):

xenolith-installer-cli install            # download the SDK for this machine (engine + toolchains)
xenolith-installer-cli new myapp          # scaffold ./myapp
xenolith-installer-cli build myapp --run  # build ./myapp and launch it

Prefer to install by hand? Download the CLI tarball from the Releases page, unpack it, then sudo mv xenolith-installer-cli /usr/local/bin/ (or run it in place as ./xenolith-installer-cli). On Windows, download the .exe.

build takes the project folder name (or any path): run the three commands from the same directory and build myapp finds ./myapp. That's the whole loop — provision once, then new + build --run per project.

CLI

The CLI is a full headless SDK manager (no GTK/WebKit — it runs on servers and over SSH). Individual commands:

xenolith-installer-cli detect                    # native host triple
xenolith-installer-cli list                      # catalogue with install status
xenolith-installer-cli install engine            # just the engine bundle (no toolchains)
xenolith-installer-cli install <triple>          # one component (sole match by id)
xenolith-installer-cli install <triple> --host   # the host toolchain for <triple>
xenolith-installer-cli install <triple> --target # the target sysroot for <triple>
xenolith-installer-cli new <name> [--path <dir>] # scaffold a project (default: cwd)
xenolith-installer-cli build <path> [--target <triple>] [--run] [--release]
xenolith-installer-cli verify                    # validate the install registry
xenolith-installer-cli update                    # components with a newer release
xenolith-installer-cli self-update               # replace this binary with the latest release

# Global: --lang <en|ru|zh>  --prefix <dir>  --engine <path>  --server host:port  --sdk-release <id>

build --release sets RELEASE=1 (optimized -O2 -DNDEBUG, output under stappler-build/<target>/release/). Default is debug.

--engine <path> (or $XENOLITH_ENGINE, or Settings → Engine path in the GUI) points STAPPLER_ROOT at a local xenolith-engine checkout instead of the baked engine-snapshot bundle — useful when iterating on the engine without re-publishing the snapshot. The path must contain make/universal.mk and must not contain spaces. Shared toolchains are still symlinked into <engine>/toolchains/.

--sdk-release <id> selects the FTP catalogue release (e.g. sdk-v0beta0); it is separate from build --release.

Installs are verified by default and fail closed without a pinned signing key. --insecure-accept-unsigned skips verification (development only).

Building & testing

cargo test            # unit + integration tests (no network)
cargo run -p xenolith-installer-cli -- detect

Status

• Core pipeline and CLI: implemented, test-driven.
• Signature verification: trait in place, fails closed; real OpenPGP check is wired once the release public key is pinned.
• GUI (Tauri + Svelte) and packaged installers: in progress.

License

MIT