The hand-packed icns was pixel-clean (verified by unpacking and scanning
every size), but macOS 26 composites legacy .icns icons into the Liquid
Glass system at render time; stacked on Icon Composer's baked PNG-export
lighting, that clips the rim highlights into the near-corner specks and
abrupt highlight ends (owner report 2026-10-13). The fix is the real
layered icon: mac.icon now points at the Icon Composer document
(build/icon.icon, copied from ~/Documents/Affinity/lh-logo) and
electron-builder compiles it via actool into Assets.car — macOS 26+
renders the true Liquid Glass design (dark/tinted variants included).
actool's backwards-compat icns caps at 256px, so scripts/after-pack.cjs
swaps in the existing full-res build/icon.icns before signing: pre-Tahoe
macOS keeps today's quality, Tahoe gets the layered icon.
Windows/Linux get the owner's flat design (rounded squircle with baked
transparency): scripts/make-icons.mjs renders build/icon-flat.svg via
resvg into build/icon.ico (16→256 PNG entries) + build/icon.png (512),
and electron-builder.yml pins win.icon/linux.icon.
desktop:dist injects DEVELOPER_DIR (actool needs Xcode; the machine
selects CommandLineTools by default, CI's setup-xcode takes precedence
via the :- default). The release workflow's mac job selects Xcode 26+
explicitly. Verified locally: mac --dir build (Assets.car + checksummed
full-res fallback + CFBundleIconName/IconFile) and the win-unpacked exe
carries our ico bytes; NSIS/AppImage assembly is CI's (cross-build
tooling can't run on arm64 macOS). Runbook updated. 1610/1610.
electron-updater in the shell (packaged builds only; dev never updates).
Checks at startup + every 24h, downloads silently, and the renderer shows
a Restart banner once the update is staged (it installs on quit either
way). Manual "Check for Updates..." under the app menu answers via dialog.
Every updater event routes through the shell log and is caught - the
updater can never take the app down (verified live: a feed failure logs
three lines and the app runs on).
LH_UPDATE_FEED overrides the baked GitHub feed with a generic local
server - the pre-release drill: serve latest-mac.yml + zip + blockmap
from localhost and a real installed copy updates itself, no release, no
public repo.
The asar allow-list re-includes electron-updater + its 16-package runtime
tree explicitly (gitignore last-match-wins; asar verified at 2.1 MB).
The banner rides the preload bridge (onUpdateStatus/installUpdate) and
renders nothing in the browser. window.lh typing centralized in
sidebar.tsx's declaration.
The 2026-10-08 flip, verified end-to-end (notarized build accepted,
stapled, spctl clean): Developer ID auto-detect, LH_NOTARY keychain
profile, zip + blockmap beside the DMG for Squirrel.Mac, publish block
pointing at GitHub Releases (repo goes public before 0.3.0; builds never
auto-upload — publishing is a release-time act).
The measured problem (330MB DMG / 1066MB app): electron-builder's
dependency collector packed the whole production dep tree into
app.asar (502MB) regardless of the files allow-list, because
normalizeFiles turns the array into one {filter} fileSet whose
entries ALL feed the per-dep copier (its implicit '**/*' passing
everything), and unpacked the native rungs into a 150MB
app.asar.unpacked. The launcher needs nothing but electron + node
builtins — the server ships via extraResources.
The fix (electron-builder.yml files): gitignore-style negation
ordering — '!**/*' first excludes everything, then only
electron/** and package.json re-include. The same list reaches the
per-dep filter, where app-builder-lib's destination-path quirk
(stat.moduleFullFilePath in util/filter.js) means no dep file can
ever re-include: all 566 modules collect zero files (DEBUG-mode
verified). Locale trim rides along (mac.electronLanguages: en).
Result on a fresh desktop:dist: app.asar 502MB -> 16KB (shell only:
electron/main.cjs, preload.cjs, package.json), app.asar.unpacked
gone, Frameworks 288MB -> 239MB, app 1066MB -> 367MB, DMG 330MB ->
144MB. Resources/server curation untouched (127MB, sharp native +
pdfjs traced and verified live).
Live verification against the packaged app: server spawn via
ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE on its kernel-assigned port, model slots via
PUT /api/settings/models, chat round-trip streaming an exact echo,
read tool on a PDF through the pdfjs path (exact text extracted),
image attach through the vision slot, GET /api/graph snapshot and
render-settings.
Docs full-accuracy pass (owner-approved scope): README +
docs/architecture.md swept of the dead embeddings / graph-context
injection / cluster-namer / semantic-clusters story (wave-7
casualties), MODELS/config roster rewritten to the BYOK slot
chain, EXTRACTION.chunkTokens -> graph.extractionChunkTokens,
route count 16 -> 25, steer_ctx_ dropped, seam table re-pointed at
the prober graph tools; docs/research/stt.md:50's "we already ship
transformers.js" premise corrected; config.ts orphaned EXTRACTION
doc block (left over from eed4b4e) deleted.
Note for master: npm prune still owed in the master tree (~690MB
stale @huggingface/onnxruntime trees absent from the lockfile);
worktree tree is clean and verified.
The web app becomes a desktop app without changing shape: the Electron
shell spawns the Next standalone server on a loopback port and points a
sandboxed window at it. All app logic stays in the Next server.
Bands:
1. LH_DATA_DIR seam (config.ts): PATHS.data/chats/graph derive from
process.env.LH_DATA_DIR (else repo data/, unchanged in dev). New
PATHS.modelCache routes the transformers.js embedding-model cache
(~300MB) to <data>/models when the seam is set — the default cache
inside node_modules is read-only in a packaged bundle. All existing
fs writes flow through PATHS; teacherPrompt stays ROOT-anchored
(read-only asset, ships inside the bundle by design).
tests/data-dir-seam.test.ts covers set/unset via child process.
2. Standalone build (next.config.ts + scripts/build-server.mjs):
output 'standalone'; outputFileTracingExcludes data/**/* keeps the
repo's real session data out of the bundle (verified: an unexcluded
scratch build traced 34 files / 716K of real chats + ledgers).
Two empirically-verified tracer gaps required outputFileTracingIncludes:
pi-ai's provider catalog (JSON import attributes — 39 files, 500s on
/api/models without them) and onnxruntime-node's sibling dylib
(libonnxruntime.dlopen via @rpath). build-server.mjs copies public/
and .next/static per docs, refuses a leaked data/ dir, and asserts
the runtime-read prompt .md assets are traced.
3. Electron shell (electron/main.cjs, no preload):
- single-instance lock (two instances would fight over the data dir);
- free port via listen(0); spawn via process.execPath +
ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1 with PORT/HOSTNAME=127.0.0.1/LH_DATA_DIR;
- BYOK: userData/auth.json, flat {VAR: value} JSON, mode 0600,
merged into the child env only when absent from the real env
(auth UI is the settings milestone; file is hand-editable);
- poll until the server answers (no ready event), then open a
contextIsolation+sandbox window; deny-by-default permission
handler (media allowed only from the loopback origin — mic/STT
groundwork); will-navigate pinned to origin, window.open denied
with external links to the system browser; macOS Edit-menu roles;
- quit path SIGTERM→3s→SIGKILL + exit/SIGHUP nets; child stdout
mirrored to userData/logs/main.log;
- dev mode via LH_DEV_URL: no spawn, points at next dev (HMR).
4. Packaging (electron-builder.yml + build/entitlements.mac.plist):
files = electron shell only; the whole .next payload ships via
extraResources from .next (filter standalone/**/*) — NOT from
.next/standalone directly: electron-builder hard-excludes a copy's
root node_modules and the default pattern is a literal match, so
node_modules/ and .next/ were silently dropped and the server died
with 'Cannot find module next'. Asar holds no native code.
Unsigned (identity: null) until a Developer ID cert exists; hardened
runtime + audio-input entitlements laid now for the STT milestone.
desktop:dev / desktop:dist scripts (electron 44, electron-builder 26).
Live smoke of the packaged .app: server up on a random loopback port,
all API routes 200, a real GLM chat turn answered end-to-end via
auth.json BYOK, chat persisted under userData/data, second instance
exited via the lock, no orphaned server child after quit.
Gates: typecheck, eslint, 500/500 tests (+2 data-dir-seam), build.
amosblomqvist