The scraper read emulatorLauncher master on every run, so an extractor
change was diffed together with upstream's commits since the pin. It now
rereads the commit platforms/retrobat.yml pins. --revision master moves
it, and check_freshness and refresh_stale pass that through the
registry's rescrape_args.
The extractors also read master (f681f435): Kronos and YabaSanshiro
fall back to sega_101.bin then mpr-17933.bin when the chosen BIOS is
absent, Ymir writes a forced BIOS only under its override flag, and a
folder created below bios (Ymir's cdb) is a passes_path record. At the
pin the 187 records are unchanged.
EmuELEC links /storage/.local/share/flycast to /storage/roms/bios/dc
(flycast.sh:11-14 at v4.8), and Flycast reads
$HOME/.local/share/flycast. Root's home there is /storage
(packages/sysutils/busybox/package.mk:168, profile.d/98-busybox.conf:4,
sourced by flycast.sh:7), which nothing recorded, so the link bound
nothing and flycastsa's files went to the BIOS root.
The registry's home_directory now spells that directory as ~ in the
handles and directories of launcher records. flycastsa's ten files
land in bios/dc, where the libretro build already reads them. The
manifest drops dc_boot.bin and dc_nvmem.bin from the BIOS root, which
no emulator reads there, and six arcade archives at the root go back
to the MAME sets the mame cores claim.
platforms/romfolders/<platform>.yml records the roms root from the OS's
own source (roms_root path and from_bios), the same fact the registry's
roms_directory restated for ROCKNIX alone. The manifest's roms_directory
now carries from_bios, which the installer follows from a BIOS folder of
the platform's name, and the registry key is gone. A list that installs
above its BIOS folder (AmberELEC) holds its roms root in the install
tree: a file a launcher runs from there is a plain dest. emulators_directory
stays in the registry: no rom folders file names emulator folders.
RetroBat's Pico8 generator runs pico8.exe from AppConfig.GetFullPath:
the emulatorLauncher.cfg key, else the first existing of four folders of
the RetroBat install. The registry describes that search
(emulators_directory) and the manifest writes such a file as
root: emulators. The installer places it only when the BIOS folder sits
beside RetroBat's launcher config and the config does not move the
folder, and names it no_emulators_directory otherwise. Packs skip it as
they skip root: roms.
The PICO-8 0.2.7 Windows build (pico8.exe, SDL2.dll) is collected from
the archive.org copy of pico-8_0.2.7_windows.zip, its pico8.dat being
the 0.2.7 one already held.
A platform that binds part of a standalone layout leaves the entries no
binding covers in a folder outside the BIOS tree: they are no longer
packed at the BIOS root, and the manifest names them (root: emulator,
outside_bios_folder). A launcher that executes a profile's file binds
the program folder: in the BIOS tree, below the roms directory a registry
entry names (root: roms, installed into the folder holding the BIOS
folder), or nowhere a pack reaches. A moved entry resolves by its own
path as well as by its destination.
uae4all gains kick.rom and rom.key in its working directory and loses a
not_bundled_on that named Recalbox, which runs uae4all-rpi. lexaloffle
declares that its programs read beside their executable, lists the
Windows build RetroBat runs and the pico8_dyn ROCKNIX runs on x86_64.
- The installer says "Every file on the list is in place." where it
said "Everything is in place.": a check covers the files the
collection holds, and the required ones it lacks follow.
- The FAQ, first install, legal and home pages state only what the
code shows (PlayStation 1 and Saturn run without a BIOS on some
emulators, save files are never touched, records are added).
- MinUI and MyMinUI show their own boot logos, and the Android,
Linux handheld and iPhone tiles show the Android robot, Tux and a
plain device icon, each credited in sources.json.
- Each Markdown copy, llms.txt and llms-full.txt name the commit
they were built from, version.json the current one, and the
answering rules tell assistants to fetch a stale copy again.
- The deploy lists the pages whose words changed (digests.json) and
posts them to IndexNow once the site is live.
MiSTer and BizHawk declare cores: []. --region, --one-per-slot and
--no-game-data read the profiles of the cores a platform runs, so their
packs and manifests withdrew nothing under a name and README that said
they had. generate_pack and verify now refuse the flags for a named
platform and leave it out under --all.
The v4.8 release publishes four images (Amlogic-ng, GameForce,
OdroidGoAdvance, OdroidM1, read from its asset names). The metapackage
(packages/sx05re/emuelec/package.mk:8-77) builds the S922X cores, dolphinSA
and mame only on Amlogic-ng, Amlogic-no, RK356x and OdroidM1, and removes
duckstation on the handhelds with a sed that replaces the first match only:
pcsx_rearmed, written twice, keeps its 64-bit build. Each package is mapped
to its cores by the .so or program its install step copies, PKG_ARCH is
applied as scripts/build:28-30 does, and es_systems.cfg is edited per
device as emuelec-emulationstation/package.mk:114-143 does. Amlogic-ng and
OdroidM1 list 124 cores, the handhelds 117.
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.
AmberELEC's metapackage adds LIBRETRO_CORES_EXTRA (bsnes, Mesen, melonDS, geolith) only on RG552, RG353 and RG503, and deletes those cores from es_systems.cfg on every other device (packages/amberelec/package.mk:23-31, 45-58 at a21975bf). The new target scraper reads the Makefile's device images, that test and es_systems.cfg the way the platform scraper does: RG351P, RG351V and RG351MP list 125 cores, the other three 136. The installer reads the device from COREELEC_DEVICE in os-release (scripts/image:168).
Native RetroArch on Linux keeps retroarch.cfg under $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/retroarch when the variable is set, and falls back to ~/.retroarch.cfg (file_path_special.c fill_pathname_application_data, configuration.c open_default_config_file at e98e1da0). Detection read ~/.config/retroarch only.
KNULLI builds per board on Batocera's Kconfig model from its own tree (knulli-cfw/knulli-linux at the tag platforms/knulli.yml pins): configs/knulli-*.board, package/system/knulli-system/Config.in, knulli-es-system/es_systems.yml and the knulli-cfw/buildroot submodule. Ten boards, the armhf library builds excluded.
BizHawk's tile takes EmuHawk's application icon (ApplicationIcon in its csproj) instead of an account avatar. MinUI has no logo of its own: its entry and copy go, and fetch_site_images.py now removes the copy of a platform without a logo.
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.
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.
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.
scripts/sitediagrams.py writes the explainer, install flow, verification modes, MinUI card, pipeline and data layer diagrams as inline SVG from the registry, the platform files, the install manifests and the pipeline step list. A page asks for one with an image comment, which the decoration pass resolves. The two mermaid diagrams of the architecture page are replaced, so no page loads mermaid from unpkg.
Platform logos and system icons are copied once by fetch_site_images.py with their source and owner recorded, and the build rewrites the remote links to the copies. validate_site refuses an image from another host. Three registry logos named a personal avatar instead of the project's (RomM, ROCKNIX, MiSTer FPGA) and MyMinUI's was a GitHub identicon, now dropped.
One 1200x630 sharing card per section, a 404 page with search and the two entry pages, and a list of screenshots that need a real device.
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.
AmberELEC, PAN4ELEC and EmuELEC detection now installs their own lists
at /storage/roms, the root those lists are written against; KNULLI its
own list at /userdata/bios. JELOS, KOLOS, UnofficialOS and Arch R keep
RetroArch's list with the folder their retroarch.cfg names.
Each OS publishes Batocera's systems dict (knulli-systems, and
batocera-systems at AmberELEC's newest prerelease commit and EmuELEC v4.8),
read with the shared parser. Cores come from each OS's own ES list.
AmberELEC and EmuELEC declare neogeo/ and ports/ beside bios/ from
/storage/roms, so their packs extract there and core_destination puts
core files under bios/.
DraStic keeps its BIOS in its private data and Flycast in Android/data,
which Termux cannot write on Android 11 and later. An installed one is now
named with the files not copied, and a writable Flycast folder is a
standalone copy target.
AmberELEC, EmuELEC, JELOS, KOLOS, UnofficialOS, ArchR, PAN4ELEC, dArkOS,
RetroOZ, spruceOS, CrossMix-OS, Onion, Allium, Koriki, MiyooCFW and plumOS
are found by what their builds write, named as they name themselves, and
installed to the system_directory of their RetroArch config, which follows
ArkOS and dArkOS to a second card. TrimUI stock, MinUI and a plumOS build
without a known folder are named and not installed to. Two unrelated
systems matching stop a run without a terminal.
EmuDeck's macOS build reads ~/.config/EmuDeck/settings.sh like the Linux one (functions/all.sh:3-4,24 and vars.sh:2 at dddb3022). The settings and ~/Emulation/bios rules now run on darwin too.
RomM 5.4 reads each platform's firmware where filesystem.structure.firmware
in config.yml says, bios/{platform} by default, and suggests {platform}/bios
for a {platform}/roms library (rommapp/romm 5.4.0,
backend/config/config_manager.py:58,101-109,205-225,564-568,1105-1124).
The installer only wrote bios/<platform>/. It now reads the template from
config.yml beside the library, takes --romm-firmware when that file is
elsewhere, refuses a platform-first library with no template, and detects
RomM by /romm/config/config.yml too.
No Batocera build writes /etc/batocera-version: batocera-system.mk:21-22
(batocera.linux 38845725, unchanged since batocera-30) writes
/usr/share/batocera/batocera.version. Knulli (knulli-linux 57afa662) adds
OS_NAME=knulli to os-release, writes /usr/share/knulli/knulli.version and
removes /usr/share/batocera, and no Knulli source writes /etc/knulli-release.
Neither was detected. A Knulli board is named and not narrowed by
Batocera's per-board lists, and an unlisted board is named.
muOS runs RetroArch on a config copied from its default, which reads
/run/muos/storage/bios, bound to MUOS/bios on the second card when that
card holds one, and loads cores from /opt/muos/share/core (MustardOS/internal
f41f4a89, script/control/retroarch.sh:8-20, script/device/bind.sh:116-150,
retroarch.default.cfg:2806,3151). The installer wrote to /mnt/mmc/MUOS/bios
and --installed-cores found no core. The config now decides both.
functions/all.ps1:4-14 (emudeck-we 037460ef) reads the APPDATA
settings.ps1, else the one under the profile, and takes C:\Emulation when
neither names a folder. Only the first was read and a forced platform fell
back to %USERPROFILE%\Emulation\bios. A network install names its share
through $VolName (JSONtoPS1.ps1:166-172), and a UTF-16 settings file is
decoded.
RetroBat.exe writes its folder to HKCU\SOFTWARE\RetroBat
LatestKnownInstallPath on every start (retrobat-executable 702da66a,
Program.cs:57 and 99, RegistryTools.cs:15-50). Only C:\RetroBat and the
profile folder were looked at, so an install on D: was missed and a forced
--platform retrobat wrote into C:\RetroBat\bios. The value is read
through winreg, or reg.exe under WSL, before the fixed folders.
--standalone-copies named Linux and Windows folders for Azahar's aes_keys.txt and boot9.bin and Flycast's dc_boot.bin and dc_nvmem.bin, and nothing for macOS, where both emulators read a fixed folder: ~/Library/Application Support/Azahar/sysdata (common_paths.h:36,61) and ~/Library/Application Support/Flycast/data (osx-main.mm:83-101). A test now requires a macOS folder on every copy.
EmuHawk finds every firmware by SHA1 against FirmwareDatabase.FirmwareRecords, and its cores are its own builds. The registry and the scraper both listed libretro cores whose systems overlap BizHawk's, so the pack shipped Clock Signal, O2EM, FBNeo, VICE and Citra files into Firmware/ that EmuHawk never reads. Both lists are now empty, as MiSTer's are: the database alone decides.
RomM lists a platform's firmware folder without descending (base_handler.py:1002, recursive=False) and EmulatorJS writes the chosen file, or each zip member, under its bare name. 543 files of the RomM pack sat below a folder where no core could read them. The registry now marks RomM's folder flat, and such files are omitted with the reason below_platform_folder in the manifest and the installer.
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.
BizHawk reads the Firmware folder next to EmuHawk wherever the archive was extracted. The installer looked in ~/.config/BizHawk/Firmware, which no build reads, and wrote there when nothing was found.
Lakka builds LIBRETRO_CORES minus the exclusions each project, device
and GLES image adds. Without a list, --target refused Lakka and its RPi1
pack carried firmware for cores the image does not build.
Recalbox builds seven board images with different emulators. The new
target scraper reads each board's defconfig against the package every
system.ini core names. The names that reached no profile are mapped to
the projects Recalbox builds or profiled from their source, and the
mupen64plus video plugins are set aside.
ROCKNIX builds a different emulator set per SoC, and without a target
list an H700 handheld received the PS2, PS3 and GameCube firmware of
emulators its image lacks. The new target scraper reads the emulators
metapackage per device; seven cores ROCKNIX ships get profiles and the
Super Famicom Box ROMs one of them needs are collected.
Abdessamad Derraz