Windows release

BF-2500: retired from the release process. CI and release.yml no longer build or publish Windows (or Ubuntu) desktop packages, and a macOS release does not need a Windows counterpart. This runbook stays for hand-built packages only; skip Every release ships both for normal releases.

Ships BotFleet-<version>-setup.exe and its update feed to Simple-With-Us/BotFleet, the only publish target (see electron-builder.yml publish).

Scope: Windows only. The macOS build is a separate flow (dmg + notarytool + staple) that must run on a Mac. This skill never touches mac artifacts — but see Every release ships both before you finish.

Preconditions

• Run on Windows. NSIS packaging from macOS needs Wine; don't.
• Node 24+ (package.json engines). Node 23 builds fine but pnpm warns on every step and CI runs 24 — don't debug a runtime oddity on the wrong major.
• pnpm via corepack pnpm. If corepack enable fails with EPERM (no admin), drop a pnpm.cmd shim containing @echo off / corepack pnpm %* somewhere on PATH — package:win chains pnpm build && … and needs bare pnpm to resolve.

1. Version

Bump version in package.json. It must match the tag on the GitHub release you upload to, and it becomes the version electron-updater compares against.

2. Build

pnpm install
pnpm typecheck
pnpm package:win

package:win deliberately omits build:speech — the dictation helper is a signed macOS Swift binary and has no Windows counterpart.

Output in release/:

3. Verify before uploading

Three things silently produce a broken app if wrong. Check all three:

Test-Path release\win-unpacked\resources\server\index.js   # harness server
Test-Path release\win-unpacked\resources\ui\index.html     # built UI
Get-Content release\win-unpacked\resources\app-update.yml  # feed config

• Missing server/index.js → utilityProcess.fork fails → the 🐭 "Couldn't start the bot server" page.
• Missing ui/index.html → server has nothing to serve → black window.
• app-update.yml must carry owner: Simple-With-Us / repo: BotFleet and, while the build is unsigned, must not contain publisherName — electron-updater would reject every update as untrusted.

Then smoke-test the installer itself. Run it, and confirm:

1. It installs per-user with no UAC prompt and launches.
2. The chat window renders (not the error page). Server logs land in %APPDATA%\BotFleet\logs\server.log.
3. The model picker lists at least one provider — this exercises the .cmd-shim resolution in server/procs.ts, which only ever runs for real on Windows.
4. No update popup appears on launch. Background check failures are silent by design; a popup here means that regressed.

4. Publish

Upload to the same tag as the macOS release for that version, so one release carries both platforms.

Copy-Item release/BotFleet-<version>-setup.exe release/BotFleet-setup.exe
gh release upload v<version> --repo Simple-With-Us/BotFleet `
  release/BotFleet-<version>-setup.exe `
  release/BotFleet-setup.exe `
  release/BotFleet-<version>-setup.exe.blockmap `
  release/latest.yml

Both names are required, for different consumers:

• BotFleet-<version>-setup.exe is what latest.yml references by name and sha512. The auto-updater downloads exactly this.
• BotFleet-setup.exe is a byte-identical copy that gives the README's /releases/latest/download/BotFleet-setup.exe button a stable URL. This mirrors BotFleet.dmg sitting beside BotFleet-<version>.dmg.

latest.yml is not optional

Without it every installed Windows app 404s on check and stays on its version forever. It is generated by package:win even under --publish never.

Never hand-edit it or carry one forward from a previous build. It pins the installer's sha512; a mismatch makes the updater download and then reject the update, which looks like "updates silently do nothing".

Every release ships both

Retired by BF-2500. This section used to require a Windows build with every macOS version. Releases are macOS-only now, so a version without a Windows build is expected, and latest.yml is no longer kept in step with latest-mac.yml. A hand-built Windows package is outside the CI-verified release set.

Known: the build is unsigned

No certificate is configured, so SmartScreen shows "unknown publisher" and users click More info → Run anyway. The README documents this. Auto-update still works because it's unsigned (no publisherName to verify against).

If signing is added later, it goes under win.signtoolOptions or win.azureSignOptions in electron-builder.yml — electron-builder 26 nests these; there is no top-level win.certificateFile. Once signed, keep the certificate subject stable forever, or list both old and new in publisherName; changing it strands every already-installed user.