generate_site.py writes the Starlight project in website/ and nothing
else: mkdocs.yml, the MkDocs hooks, theme overrides and stylesheet go,
and the wiki is written in Starlight's syntax. Both workflows set up
Node with the official actions/setup-node pinned by commit, run npm ci
from the committed lockfile, build with the strict link validator and
check the result with validate_site.py.
The search weighs a page by what it answers: Start here pages first,
a system page's cards and file names before a guide citing them, deep
guides, launchers, aliases and frozen copies after. Status badges,
hash blocks and the export change lists leave the index. The ranking
sits at the centre of a range where the 13 queries of search_gate.py
all answer, in the search box itself.
839 pages, every URL and 45,611 ids match the MkDocs build. The tests
read the Starlight content and syntax.
Platform guides, device groups, terminal tabs, pack README manuals and
logo credits move from Python tables to platforms/_guides.yml, checked
against the registry on load. A folder row without a path is the
registry's extract_to, written once.
Wiki pages place themselves in the navigation with order and nav_title
in their front matter. Generated docs/ and mkdocs.yml are unchanged.
Each reference and contributor page now says what it answers and gives
a real case before its rules: scph5501.bin for the check modes and the
data model, DuckStation's entry for profiles, RomM for a platform. The
verification example is the RetroBat d64_1.rom case the gaps page lists
instead of a scph5501.bin case the data cannot produce.
Emulator pages open on what the emulator reads, from the profile, and
keep their technical notes folded. System pages say what a card holds.
The data model shows a real database entry and links the one
resolution chain. Gaps tables name what they count ("Discrepancy",
"Where the files come from"), and the core inventory is titled Cores
by platform so cross-reference keeps one meaning.
The Start here pages ran 460 to 2,100 words and the first command of
Get your files sat 254 words down. Each page now opens on its action,
with short sentences and one fact per block. The facts a newcomer does
not act on moved one level down: the legal analysis to wiki/legal.md,
the project terms to wiki/reference-terms.md, the annotated run and the
installer failures to the installer page, collection figures to a new
Explore index.
tests/test_site_copy.py holds the budgets on the generated pages, and
the testing guide states them with their reasons.
Four statements the repository contradicts are rewritten: prboom.wad
is compiled into PrBoom (emulators/prboom.yml), Batocera reports a
mismatch as UNTESTED (batocera-systems checkBios), 13 hle_fallback
entries are required, and the gaps headline splits missing firmware
from game data and unread entries.
device_group in the registry places each platform on the device picker, in the navigation and on the home page. scripts/siteguides.py holds the guide text per platform: what it is, its BIOS folder, where the install command runs.
Both branches extracted RetroBat's Flycast BiosPath: value_folders
already produces the record, so the dedicated extractor is dropped and
its test reads the generic one.
DraStic opens nds_bios_arm9.bin, nds_bios_arm7.bin and nds_firmware.bin and checks their size. Its nine aliases are in none of its binaries, and neither platform launcher passes them: ROCKNIX links the two BIOS names from its bios folder, and RetroPie runs DraStic from $md_conf_root/nds/drastic (drastic.sh:48), now a passes_path record. The collection answers DraStic's names with its DS dumps in generate_db, where repository names belong.
standalone_path is relative to the directories a standalone build
resolves it against, now declared per profile (standalone_directories).
A launcher record that links or passes a whole folder of the BIOS tree
under one of them gives that folder, and platform_layouts rebases the
standalone view once for the builder, the manifest, verify and slots
(launchers.standalone_root, common.standalone_destination).
Flycast on RetroPie and ROCKNIX reads bios/dc, on EmuDeck
bios/flycast/bios, on Batocera (FLYCAST_BIOS_PATH) and RetroBat
(Dreamcast.BiosPath) bios/dc. The ROCKNIX, Batocera and RetroBat
scrapers now record the patched data directory, the environment
variable and the setting that say so.
architecture.md drew path_suffix ahead of SHA1 and listed a core
resolution that missed the retroarch list entry and built_by. Both now
link to the one statement that matches common.py. The Recalbox table
read hashMatchMandatory into verify.py, which never reads it, and
md5_composite hashes member contents, not member MD5s
(Zip.cpp:71-96). The validation index is built from the platform's
resolved profiles only. The requirement table gains the fields that
make a platform YAML reversible, and pages that name a platform list
say what changes rather than judging it.
Step 5 compared (ok, total) and the core file count. RetroArch, Lakka
and RetroPie read 526/526 on both sides while verify credited four paths
below SGB1.sfc and SGB2.sfc that the pack never writes: a declared file
blocks them as a directory. verify now places the platform files in the
builder's order with the same path rules, and a user_provided or
external declaration keeps its slot on both sides, so no core file takes
it in the report only.
verify --destinations writes the paths each pack holds by the report,
and step 5 compares them with the archive members (notes and data tree
members set aside). Every emulator profile, in each build it has, is
built in memory (PackRecord, nothing read or written) and compared with
verify --emulator path by path. Cost measured here: about 1 s per
platform archive and 11 s for the 930 emulator packs.
Principles, collection rules and the inverted model in architecture.md, research and citation rules in profiling.md, platform and scraper rules in their pages, tool conventions in tools.md, test and commit expectations in testing-guide.md, installer constraints in installer.md. Each rule sits where a reader looks for it, with its reason. Also fixes the stale release-job line, the suite command without -t ., and the unsourceable definition.
RetroPie's YAML listed no standalone_cores, so every package was laid
out as a libretro core and the standalone files of amiberry, dolphin,
hatari, mame and ppsspp never reached the pack. Packages without the
lr- prefix (bar the retroarch frontend) are now standalone, and names
shipped both ways are dual-mode.
A names_searched list is one place the launcher fills with the first name it finds, so a core file it would never open once another name of the list is held is not reported missing. A place no declared file and no packed core file fills receives, under the launcher's name, a file the core accepts by content. The layer is applied inside find_undeclared_files, which verify and the pack builder both read, and a test reads their source to keep it there.
The scraper walks each package's functions the way RetroPie runs them in one shell (assignments, arrays, for loops, brace expansion, $md_id, calls into other packages) and records every link, copy, move and setting that names $biosdir, the addEmulator flags (sdltrs -romfile3), the BIOS read outside $biosdir (basilisk --rom, gngeopi -B) and the launch scripts that exit without their file (fs-uae kick13.rom, reicast dc_boot.bin).
Each package also gets a package record with its rp_module_repo and the systems it registers, which maps a package to the build it compiles. The schema gains package, repo, systems and the moves and package kinds. platforms/retropie.yml is regenerated at 46128cd2: only the launchers section is new.
The scraper now records, from configgen at the pinned tag, the names each Recalbox launcher tries and where it hands them: the Hatari TOS cascades (standalone, hatari and hatarib cores), GSplus, Amiberry kickstarts, the PCSX2 region choice, the Dolphin IPL presence test, xemu, the mupen64plus 64DD IPL, the Mini vMac boot disk and the o2em_bios option. The system_directory libretroRetroarch gives each core, and the per-system overrides after it, are passes_path records.
The scraper reads the start scripts and the configs each package installs at the tag the BIOS list is pinned to: configs that name a BIOS path, the yabasanshiro search, directories handed to DuckStation and the PCSX2 builds, and the ln -s commands that put bios/ where an emulator reads. A package that ships one config per device gets a device field only where the values differ, as melonDS does on AMD64.
Dropping the double-dash asides left 72 comments and docstrings with
half a dash glued to the next word ("shape -a size or a size range -is
all"). They now read as a colon, a comma or parentheses, and a prose
style test names any that comes back.
PR validation runs validate_schemas.py --source-only and the pipeline did not, so a profile with an unquoted numeric core name passed every step and failed CI on push. It is step 0 now, skipped where jsonschema is not installed.
Profiles, the wiki, comments, docstrings, command output and schema descriptions carried em-dashes, clause-joining semicolons, unicode arrows, box-drawing banners and check-mark glyphs. Each sentence was rewritten rather than having its character swapped. Hashes, paths, source_ref values and every cited file:line are unchanged, which a comparison of each parsed profile against the previous revision confirms.
validate_pr comments now say PASS and FAIL in words, and source_ref values in a profile's structured blocks render as code. test_prose_style fails if any of these comes back, in tracked files or in the generated site.
Add and reorder BIOS path entries in the site generator (BizHawk, EmuDeck, RetroPie, RomM). Update the add-platform pipeline steps and CI workflow notes. Document verification behavior changes: FirmwareDatabase index now includes sha256; RomM uses MD5 verification (verify.py checks MD5 only); BizHawk uses SHA1; severity label for GREEN adjusted to WARNING. Clarify troubleshooting/verify output semantics (UNTESTED and mismatch reporting), add profiling fields (core_classification option and adler32), fix several path and link typos (RetroDECK path, README/CONTRIBUTING links), and other small docs polishing.
9 new wiki pages: getting-started, faq, troubleshooting,
advanced-usage, verification-modes, adding-a-platform,
adding-a-scraper, testing-guide, release-process.
Updated architecture.md with mermaid diagrams, tools.md with
full pipeline and target/exporter sections, profiling.md with
missing fields, index.md with glossary and nav links.
Expanded CONTRIBUTING.md from stub to full contributor guide.
Filter .old.yml from load_emulator_profiles, generate_db alias
collection, and generate_readme counts. Fix BizHawk sha1 mode
in tools.md, fix RetroPie path, fix export_truth.py typos.
Abdessamad Derraz