install.py took --list-platforms, generate_pack.py --list and verify.py
nothing. Both tools now take --list-platforms and print the same list
from common.py. generate_pack.py keeps --list (finding 80).
--all --system built every pack asked for and exited 1 on a platform
that has no such system. The scope is now decided before the lock:
skipped under --all, refused under --platform (finding 15).
A system the target leaves no core for was verified 0/0 with exit 0,
and generate_pack blamed the platform for lacking it. Both read
platform_scope_systems and system_scope_error now (findings 13, 14).
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.
The MinUI family's lists record cores and regions and no system: every
narrowing was refused with a remedy that fetched the same list. Each
option is now refused by the axis missing, with what works, and a pack
names its platform's list only when that list records the axis. Line
mode names what c chooses and skips a question with one answer, and
Options leaves out parallel downloads when nothing is downloaded.
Answers code_audit_17 and tui_audit_10: the folder found after o, SHARE
drive roots, one same-choice command, a counted confirm step in line
mode, counts from the narrowed list, read-only advice without sudo,
systems recorded in packs, Ctrl-Z stopping the whole job, and the
wording, layout and docs items.
_MISSING_DATA_DIRS is module state: a test that called main() after one
whose data directories were not cached exited 1 with the earlier run's
notice. main() now clears it first.
release_pack: true in the registry is the list a release builds: RetroArch,
EmuDeck, RetroBat, Batocera, RomM and MiSTer, 83% of the downloads of
v2026.10.10. generate_pack --all, --verify-packs, the pipeline consistency
step, release_record and check_release read it. Manifests are still written
for every platform.
Each manifest carries system_titles, the name the site prints for every system its files list (Sony PlayStation, not sony-playstation or psx), so the installer can show it. Older installers ignore the field.
batocera-systems lists bios/saves/dolphin-emu/Triforce/segaboot.gcm, so the pack folder for the save directory is userdata-saves/. validate_schemas refuses a pack folder the BIOS tree already uses.
Batocera, KNULLI, Recalbox, RetroBat and RetroDECK hand a libretro core <saves>/<system> at each launch. Each copy lands below every system that runs the core. EmuDeck keeps one unsorted saves/retroarch/saves. The unsupported platforms record why.
load_from: save_dir entries of a libretro build were left out of every
pack. They now go below the platform's save folder (registry
save_directory: RetroArch saves/, Lakka savefiles/, by core), the
manifest marks them root: save, and verify replays the same placement.
Platforms keeping saves per system or per game list them as omitted.
The install manifest marks each game data file "category": "game_data":
a platform entry only game data profile entries read, or a core file its
profile declares game data. Firmware carries no category. Every manifest
says "categorized": true so the installer can refuse an older list.
generate_pack.py --no-game-data cuts those files from the platform list
and the core profiles before the build, names each one with the cores that
read it as game data, and tags the pack _NoGameData through _narrowings.
verify.py and the pack check take the same cut, so --verify-packs and the
report describe the pack the builder wrote. Modes without a platform
(--emulator, --system alone, --from-md5) and --all-variants refuse it.
The pack check failed a pack for a declared file nothing in the collection resolves to, though the builder cannot ship it and verify already reports it missing. Such destinations are now counted as not in the collection; a held file absent from the pack stays an error.
minarch hands every core SDCARD_PATH/Bios/<TAG> as its system directory
and opens no file in it. The scrapers read each pak's launch.sh (core,
tag, devices), each device's core makefile (the project a library is
built from: MyMinUI's dosbox_libretro.so is dosbox-pure) and the minarch
statement, at a pinned commit. The installer recognises the card from
.system/version.txt and refuses a folder inside it.
The builder keeps a held regional fallback when the requested file is
missing (since 2026-10-17), and the comment beside the manifest's
omissions still said the opposite. A file the builder holds but the
manifest cannot download sat in omitted_files counted unheld, so the
installer kept a fallback the pack drops. Such an omission now carries
held: true and narrow() counts it held, as the builder does.
After --all-variants, --verify-packs printed "hashes checked during the
build" for the platform-only, truth and required-only packs and compared
none of them, so one missing a file its narrowed list requires passed.
Each pack is now held to the platform list narrowed the way it was built:
source and required_only, read from its name, reach the baseline, the
region grouping and the replay of the core extras.
generate_pack and verify read --system beside --platform through common.resolve_system_arg, built on platform_system_names, the mapping the manifest's system_names comes from. verify --platform --system now reports on the narrowed pack. Unknown names are refused with suggestions before the database is read.
A core extra resolved by name shipped on existence platforms even when
the core's own size check turns the copy away. The RetroPie pack carried
the 128 KB Apple IIGS ROM as Basilisk II's ROM (min 512 KB). The builder,
the manifest and verify now read validation.core_size_refusal, which
accepts a copy any version of the same profile slot takes.
The pack README's one-line install was written per platform: ROCKNIX and MiSTer had none, EmuDeck's Windows edition was told to open Konsole, and RomM users were sent to library/bios/ whatever their firmware template. The automatic section now follows each platform's install.detect systems, the EmuDeck and RomM manual steps name every layout, and the download page lists EmuDeck under Windows and macOS.
The platform's systems are known once its config is loaded. The filter ran inside the build, after the output lock and a refresh of every data directory, and ended on a WARNING with exit 1. It is now a usage error before any work.
The check ended on the last platform's line: a failing pack was named only above its own errors. It now names every failing pack on stderr at the end, as the build path does, or counts the packs found OK.
CommentsSayWhy read three scripts while 22 comments in 13 other files
named the next statement. They are removed or replaced by the reason,
and the test reads every tracked script and install.py.
The manifest now carries system_names, each system's native_system names from the platform's own file, and --system, its suggestions and --list-systems read them: --platform batocera --system psx installs sony-playstation.
download_external stayed in generate_pack, outside the offline switch: it fetched under --offline, wrote to the system /tmp and held the body in memory. It now lives in packresolve, honours the switch, streams into the repository tmp/ and hashes on the way.
BizHawk is both a platform and a profile display name: --from-md5 with --platform bizhawk and with --emulator bizhawk wrote one file in two layouts. The emulator mode now carries _Emulator in the name.
verify resolved platform entries with common.resolve_local_file and put
the slot override first, and the region pass added a destination hint.
packresolve.resolve_declaration now serves the builder, the manifest,
verify and the region pass: release assets cached for a file absent from
bios/ count as shipped in all four, and a release asset keeps its answer
over a slot override.
The refusal tables compared each flag with its default value, so --source full and --group-by system passed beside the modes that refuse every other value. Both now default to None and take their effective value after the checks, in generate_pack and pipeline.
mkstemp creates its scratch 0600 and os.replace kept that mode, so
database.json, the manifests, the packs, the recipe snapshots and the
large-file cache were readable by their owner only. set_plain_mode
gives the scratch 0o666 less the umask, as open() would, before each
rename. A test walks every function that renames a mkstemp file.
Started outside the repository root, both ended on a FileNotFoundError
traceback: the database and the data registry name files from the root.
They now move to the root after reading the paths the caller typed, which
stay relative to where they were typed.
_enrich_hashes repeated "ground truth" five times with capitalised
insistence for a three-step lookup, and the MAME ZIP rebuild listed
three guarantees of which two were the same.
The lock refusal, "no pack for", "no manifest for" and "no pack to
verify" went to stdout, so a run redirected to a log exited 1 with
nothing on the terminal. A test reads both scripts and refuses an ERROR
line printed to stdout.
generate_pack refreshed the data directories before probing its output
lock. The refresh waits for every run holding a tree, and a pipeline holds
them all: a second build sat silent for hours instead of being refused.
The output lock is now taken first, and a refresh that has to wait for a
tree names it.
Abdessamad Derraz