SHA256SUMS.txt sat beside the artifacts it vouches for, so whoever could
rewrite a release rewrote the list with it. The packs were already
reproducible, which answers corruption and lets a third party rebuild an
archive byte for byte; nothing answered a rewritten release.
The list is now signed with an ed25519 key kept for this alone, and the
public half is allowed_signers at the repository root, so verification
does not go through the release page: ssh-keygen -Y verify against the
committed file, then sha256sum --check. Rehearsed on all three outcomes:
a good signature, a tampered pack caught by the sums, a rewritten list
caught by the signature.
The release steps sign and upload the signature, the README points a
downloader at the procedure, and the reproducibility section says what
each half proves. Rotation keeps retired lines so past releases stay
verifiable. Three tests hold the trust root, the signing step and the
documented principal in agreement.
validate.yml triggered on pull_request alone, and it holds the only
unittest invocation in the repository: deploy-site.yml stops at
validate_schemas, generation and the freshness diff. Work lands on main
by direct push far more often than by pull request, so 1,318 cases were
guarding the road almost nothing takes.
The suite and the schema check now run on both events. validate-bios and
label-pr read pull request context and carry an event guard. The
concurrency group falls back to the ref, so a push series collapses to
the tip: what stays verified is the head of main.
The path lists are spelled out per event because the workflow parser
reads no YAML anchor, which PyYAML would have accepted in silence. Four
tests hold the wiring: the suite reachable from a push, the two path
lists equal, every job reading pull request context guarded, and no
anchor in any workflow.
The field reference carried the same attribution the FAQ did:
known_hash_adler32 described as Dolphin's IPL files, when dolphin.yml
declares it on dsp_rom.bin and dsp_coef.bin. The guard now scans every
wiki page rather than the FAQ alone.
The home page and the stats export counted every file carrying a
provenance record, the provenance page and the README only the system
files. The site published 553 and 566 for the same quantity, one click
apart, and the export paired the wider count with composition.systems as
its denominator. common.count_catalog_matched is now the single source,
scoped to the systems bucket.
The FAQ had drifted from the profiles it describes: MAME pinned at 0.287
against 0.289 in mame.yml, Adler-32 attributed to Dolphin's IPL rather
than the DSP ROMs that carry known_hash_adler32, and the per-emulator
verbose report named as the only content check on an existence platform,
which skips the DISCREPANCY line the platform report raises itself.
Tests read both sides: no generator may count matches inline, and each
FAQ claim is checked against the profile or the script that owns it.
Pinning every member's metadata made packs reproducible and took the
executable bit with it. The RetroDECK pack ships the two Voxatron engine
binaries, and extracted at 644 they cannot be run.
Git records the bit, so reading it from the source file keeps a pack the
same from any clone. Nothing else about the source's mode reaches the
archive: 2569 members ship at 644 and 942 at 755, which is what the
builder produced before the pinning.
Nothing caught this. The comparison that proved the pinning inert
checked member names, CRCs and sizes, and mode is none of those. A test
now builds a runnable payload and asserts it survives extraction.
RetroDECK rebuilds to the same bytes twice and passes its integrity
check, 2008/2008 baseline and 1551/1551 cores.
The job carried if: false, which blocks workflow_dispatch as well as
push, so there was no way to cut a release through CI at all and the
comment described a temporary state that had become permanent.
Releasing is deliberate: the push trigger is gone and the job runs when
someone dispatches it. The seven-day rate limit stays as the guard
against dispatching twice, and concurrency no longer cancels a run that
may be midway through uploading assets.
A region- or target-filtered build wrote to the same filename as the
full one. Both filters now appear in the pack and manifest names, and
verify.py accepts --region for emulator and system reports so the
coverage figures come from the same selection the builder used.
LICENSE covered the whole repository, so the MIT grant read as
covering 9.9 GB of third-party firmware. It now states its scope and
NOTICE describes the files it does not cover, with a removal channel.
The FAQ cited Connectix and Accolade for redistribution when both
decided intermediate copying during reverse engineering, presented fair
use as settled, read section 1201(f) as a general permission, and
listed abandonware among legal doctrines. Each claim is now stated at
the strength it actually has, and the weakest ground is named.
The pages described workflows, an installer pinning and a CI permission
model that are not the ones in the tree. Corrected: the release process,
the CI table, the resolution chain and its statuses, the hash-mismatch
policy per verification mode, the archive convention, and the romset
recipe store.
The FAQ keeps the project's own reading of the legal question rather
than a version that reaches no conclusion.
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.
Update wiki source files (the single source of truth for the site):
- tools.md: renumber pipeline steps 1-8, add step 6 (pack integrity),
add missing CLI flags for cross_reference.py and refresh_data_dirs.py
- architecture.md: update mermaid diagram with pack integrity step,
fix test file count (5 files, 249 tests)
- testing-guide.md: add test_pack_integrity section, add step 5 to
verification discipline checklist
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