The release carries the packs, the handheld launchers and the signed checksum list. The installer and the file lists are pinned from the tag (installer page, For packagers), and check_release.py now refuses them as unrecorded files. The notes link each pack's files on the release itself, in a beginner's page: one idea per line. The handheld section links the latest release.
The RetroArch pack lands in RetroArch Android's system folder, where MediaProvider indexed 3 842 images, sounds and videos (552 MB) into the gallery and music apps: a folder holding .nomedia is hidden with every folder below it (FileUtils.java:1587-1629, ModernMediaScanner.java:845-846, a183e2b9). A pack whose platform files an Android target, unfiltered or built for one, carries an empty .nomedia. pack_files counts it and the integrity check takes it for a marker.
tests/__init__.py keeps a run offline, its scratch under tmp/ and its
installer cache its own, but only discover -s tests -t . imported it.
discover tests ran with RETROBIOS_OFFLINE unset, scratch on the /tmp
tmpfs and the user's real installer cache, the setting in which e2e
fixtures had written into the shared .cache/large. Every test module now
imports the package first, and a test fails on a module that does not.
test_verify_listing.py took its line with the previous commit.
RetroPie was the only platform with status: archived, which kept it out
of verify --all, slots, the pipeline and list_platforms unless
--include-archived was typed. release_pack already decides which packs a
release publishes and the installer serves every platform, so the status
set nothing apart. The field, its schema entry and the flag are gone, and
RetroPie is covered by every full run like any other platform.
The v2026.10.10 notes said a pack holds every file its emulators open, so
a game never stops on a missing file, and that hashes never come from a
forum list: the gap analysis lists files no pack carries, and in md5
mode a pack keeps the platform's own md5 (verification-modes.md). The
generated text and the README now point to the gap analysis, and
release_notes.py refuses a whats-new text holding a judging or
contradicted phrase.
install/<platform>.json wrote the constant "1.0" as the version of the
list it was built from. The manifest now carries the version the platform
YAML records, and generate_pack refuses a YAML without one.
inherits: no longer passes a parent's version to a child: Lakka was
published as RetroArch v1.22.2 in its manifest, pack name and site page.
lakka.yml records v6.1, the Lakka-LibreELEC tag its target list is read
at. The MiSTer scraper refuses a BiosDB without a timestamp instead of
writing an empty version.
A pack's manifest.json records list_version, so an install from the pack
alone knows it too. Manifests regenerated twice and compared: only
version and generated changed.
get/<platform>/ lists the files of the current release pack, read from
release.json, or gives the command for a setup without one. The README,
setup pages, Get your files and the release notes link it instead of
asset URLs, which die with each deleted tag. Setups without a ZIP say so
with the command beside it, and validate_site checks every get/ page.
The second pass, the archive-prefix pass and the agnostic scan built
extras without source_name or source_path, so verify found no gap report
entry for them and counted game data such as hiscore.dat as core files.
Every extra now carries its entry's category and key, and verify reads
the category from the extra the builder places.
release_record rebuilt nothing from the name builder: a substring match
took RetroArch_v1.22.2_AndroidArm64V8A_BIOS_Pack.zip for the RetroArch
pack. The record now refuses any pack that is not a registered platform's
full pack and stores the platforms each pack serves, which the readers
use instead of the pack name.
The pack table, its parts sentence and the install commands were typed by hand from figures release.json already held. A copied cell or an old collection total at the top is how issue 81 happened. release_notes.py renders them and appends the hand-written account of what changed.
On a hash platform the builder leaves out a file whose declared hash the local copy contradicts, but the README coverage added every UNTESTED file to the present count. RetroDECK read 2,008/2,008 for a pack carrying 2,007. verify now lists the destinations the builder refuses, and the coverage subtracts them.
Abdessamad Derraz