Five tabs from Start here to Contribute, a level on every page, a device picker on Get your files that lists every registered platform, and platform pages that open on where the files go, the command, the pack and how to check. FAQ and troubleshooting keep the questions asked before installing, the technical ones move to their own page, and getting started points to the pages that took its content.
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.
The -listxml names, for every machine, its parent (romof), the devices of its default configuration (device_ref) and the cards its slots offer (slotoption). A machine takes the system of the first set on its romof chain a written entry lists, and passes it to each device it can instantiate. A device set reached from one system gets system:, from several the new per-entry systems:, from none neither, and keeps serving every system of the profile. The gap report, the core extras and slots read the entry's own systems, so generate_pack --system and the installer pick by them.
detect_pinned_tag matched core_version against every view, so an upstream_commit set to the release tag a port was cut from (triforce on Dolphin 2407, dosbox_pure on 1.0-preview7, GroovyMAME on mame0289) froze the whole profile: the port was no longer compared with its HEAD and bump_commit refused. Only the documented build's repository freezes the profile now. An upstream on its tag is self-checked at that tag, is not reported orphaned, and a bump leaves upstream_commit on it.
The test skeleton indexed verify_platform's dict result as a list and
stopped on KeyError: 0. The verification discipline and the profiling
guide hedged rules the project holds as firm. The profile field table
marked as required fields the schema does not require, and now names
the pin that profile_sync --strict needs.
kronos tags the ST-V BIOS epr-19854.ic8 taiwan, mednafen_stv tags it
asia-ntsc, the SMPC area Mednafen names for Taiwan (ss.cpp:1119,
2363-2364). As siblings under asia they never matched, so a request in
one spelling dropped the file tagged in the other, and --region
taiwan,us dropped the Saturn sega_101.bin. AREA_TERRITORIES relates
each area to the territory it serves, china for asia-pal included, in
region.py and its installer copy.
The Required packs and manifests carried every data tree, the FreeIntv
overlays included. A data_directories entry now accepts required: false,
and the platform, emulator and manifest walks leave such a tree out under
--required-only. FreeIntv reads its overlays only with the multi-screen
option and draws a placeholder keypad without one (src/libretro.c:294-296,
350-369).
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.
The resolver reads built_by as the platforms on which a core name means this build. Its definition said platforms that compile a libretro build, which excludes a standalone build a platform installs from the project's release. The field now says what it decides: platforms that ship this build under its core name, compiled or installed from the release.
DuckStation identifies its BIOS by MD5 in a folder it scans
(bios.cpp:208), so its entries' names are labels. The export wrote them
into Batocera's and ROCKNIX's lists as files to hold: a user with only
scph5501.bin read 104 missing BIOS where DuckStation boots. Labels also
lent their md5 to a name another core opens, and paired by name they
replaced System.dat's scph5000.bin hashes.
found_by: name | content, on a profile or a file and keyed by build like
load_from. The truth records which cores open each name (_named_by). A
label pairs with a platform entry by hash only, is never added, merges
with an opened name only on a shared hash, and is counted in the export
report rather than listed as missing.
A file the emulator installs itself is left out of the packs, per build and per platform. The profiling guide documents bundled, installed_on and not_bundled_on, the FAQ says why a file the emulator reads may be missing from a pack, and an emulator page names the build that installs it and the platforms whose package differs.
A profile that reads a libretro core and the original emulator cited both trees alike, and readers could not tell whether the core or the emulator asked for a file. A cited path now opens with source or upstream, the repository its lines are in. Emulator code a port carries is attributed upstream when the original holds the same value on the cited line.
profile_sync --attribute-refs writes the words from where the lines are found and follows a word already written. The site links each citation to that repository's pin, labels it libretro core or upstream emulator, and says on each file card whose code asks for it. A recale keeps the word, and mame_ref_audit reads the tree it names.
Paid Android emulators announce versions that circulate only rebuilt or re-signed. The profile stays on the newest unmodified build, and version_source.no_genuine_copy names the release searched for, so check_freshness stops flagging it until the page announces a later one.
The guides said files over 50 MB become release assets and that RPG Maker and ScummVM were the trees kept out of dedup. .gitignore decides the first, four committed files are over 50 MB, and NODEDUP_DIRS holds eleven trees.
About forty profiles describe projects published outside any forge (Altirra, ePSXe, DraStic, mednafen, xroar). profile_sync skipped them as an unsupported host and check_freshness reported the same UNKNOWN line every run, so a new release adding a firmware went unseen. A profile can now name the page announcing its releases and a pattern for the version: --check-version reads it, and check_freshness --profiles calls the profile stale when the page announces another version than core_version.
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.
No gradient banner, no coloured stripes or dots beside cards, no lifting cards, pill badges or small-caps headers. File blocks are separated by a rule, tables keep the theme's own size, and headings no longer repeat the site name the header bar already shows. Classes nothing emits were removed.
A prose citation whose text lived under several pins stayed in
read again until the text changed, so fixnes, zesarux and emucorex,
exact at their pins, would have refused every later bump.
prose_written_at names the pin a reader confirmed; it settles the
readings and never overrides a history with one candidate.
Dolphin and its forks hash dsp_rom.bin and dsp_coef.bin together and
warn on any combination outside known_roms. The profiles now carry the
accepted pairs, and the resolver keeps both files inside the first pair
the collection holds whole: MMJR and Ishiiruka were served the free ROM
beside the official coefficients.
nethersx2-turnip-classic documents the shim rules of the revision it
pins, and says so in prose: the classic build is that revision. Compared
to HEAD it reported the same two changes every pass, and recaling would
have repointed its refs at rules this build never had.
pin_frozen says the freeze is deliberate, and the profile is then judged
against its own revision, exactly as one pinned to a superseded tag
already was. Recale and bump are refused for it, which is what makes the
declaration safe to trust.
Saying those profiles would stay open no matter what was wrong. A dead
forge is a verifiable fact, and a fact can be recorded: upstream_gone
carries why, and the profile stops being an open problem. The refs
describe the last revision anyone could reach, which is all any reader
can ask of them.
The declaration is guarded rather than trusted, because a forge can come
back and a profile that keeps asserting a death nobody rechecks is worse
than one that fails loudly. Declared and unreachable reports as a
recorded fact; declared and answering reports as the contradiction it
is, and the profile has to be read again.
yuzu and suyu carry GitHub's 451. citron carries the loss of
git.citron-emu.org and the squatter now sitting on the .com. Each names
what was probed and when, so the next reader retraces it rather than
repeating it.
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.
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