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.
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.
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.
A value of another length was looked up as an MD5 and reported NOT FOUND,
a SHA-256 was dropped, and an input with no hash ended on "No valid
hashes found in input". Digests are now read by length (CRC32, MD5 and
its 29-digit Batocera form, SHA-1, SHA-256), SHA-256 is looked up in the
database, and any other value is refused with the formats accepted.
--platform retroarch --system sony-playstaton listed the first ten systems
of the alphabet. The warning now names the closest systems and the
command that lists the platform's own, as --system alone already did.
The region grouping and phase 2 of each pack and manifest called
find_undeclared_files with the same arguments: 30 reports for the 15
manifests of --all --manifest, 2.8 s, now 15 and 1.7 s. The 15 manifests
are byte-identical before and after.
Step 5 compared (ok, total) and the core file count. RetroArch, Lakka
and RetroPie read 526/526 on both sides while verify credited four paths
below SGB1.sfc and SGB2.sfc that the pack never writes: a declared file
blocks them as a directory. verify now places the platform files in the
builder's order with the same path rules, and a user_provided or
external declaration keeps its slot on both sides, so no core file takes
it in the report only.
verify --destinations writes the paths each pack holds by the report,
and step 5 compares them with the archive members (notes and data tree
members set aside). Every emulator profile, in each build it has, is
built in memory (PackRecord, nothing read or written) and compared with
verify --emulator path by path. Cost measured here: about 1 s per
platform archive and 11 s for the 930 emulator packs.
Every member was deflated, archives and PNGs included. On the 2026-10-20
RetroArch pack the .zip, .7z, .chd, .png, .ogg and .pk4 members are 2.1 GB
that took 28 s to deflate again for 9.6 MB saved (0.45 %), and about 16 GB
for 72 MB across all packs. Those formats are now stored. The choice reads
the member name only, so a pack stays byte-reproducible.
_stable_hashes retried through the hash cache, so both retries returned
the first reading and the file was read once before the manifest run
stopped. The retries now read the file again.
Both are written as <platform>.json. --manifest-targets aimed at install/
replaced install/retroarch.json with a target table, and --manifest aimed
at install/targets/ did the reverse, both with exit 0. Each mode now stops
when the output directory holds the other kind and names the directory to
use.
gngeopi and neo-emu declare neogeo.zip loose and, apart, the ROMs they
open inside it. The archive pass took the copy holding them, the loose
entry resolved by name to another copy, and both verify --emulator and
the emulator pack reported the archive missing while the ZIP held it.
with_archive_members() gives the loose entry the members in verify, the
pack, slots and the gap report.
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).
--verify-packs after an --all-variants build rebuilt only the full pack's
name and opened it alone. The five narrowed packs of the same run passed
without a line. Each one is now named with the hash check the build ran
on its members.
--emulator accepts a buildbot core name from a profile's cores:, and a
mistyped target gets the closest names instead of every target. diff_truth
shows destinations and reports unpaired entries as evidence, not removals.
The verify summary counts discrepancies, a shared destination names both
systems, a truth hash conflict names both cores, and pipeline steps carry
their place in the real run instead of N/8. Every GitHub API caller takes
the token from github_token(), which falls back to gh auth token.
BlastEm opens 32X_M_BIOS.bin and PicoDrive 32X_M_BIOS.BIN. On a case-insensitive platform the manifest kept the first and dropped the second core's claim, so an install narrowed to PicoDrive (RetroArch on Switch) lost the 32X BIOS its pack carries. The claim now joins the entry kept.
Dropping the double-dash asides left 72 comments and docstrings with
half a dash glued to the next word ("shape -a size or a size range -is
all"). They now read as a colon, a comma or parentheses, and a prose
style test names any that comes back.
The platform layer names data trees for its systems: retroarch.yml carries dolphin-sys and ppsspp-assets, and Lakka inherits them, while Lakka's core packages install both trees into the system directory. A profile records that with installed_on on its data directory, and the pack and the install manifest now leave those trees out for that platform.
A file or tree installed with the emulator is already on the user's machine, so packs, install manifests and verify's pack count leave it out. bundled is scoped by mode like any entry: Dolphin's Sys and PPSSPP's assets ship with the standalone releases, not with the libretro cores, so they now follow the libretro build only and still reach RetroArch packs. PrimeHack, standalone only, ships its own Sys.
With --all, an unknown --target skipped every platform that has targets and ran the others (BizHawk, MiSTer) unfiltered, so verify, slots and the pipeline exited 0 on a typo. A platform without targets is now left out like the rest, and a target no platform has is refused.
verify replayed the builder's placement of core files with a bare name lookup, without the archive index, the data directories or the core's own choice of copy. It compared other bytes than the pack's (blueMSX's MSX2P.rom from bios/ against the data tree's copy) and let an unresolved file take a path the builder leaves free. ExtraResolver now holds the builder's lookup and both call it.
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.
LRPS2 declares only <bios>.bin, so its emulator pack shipped no PS2 BIOS. The images in the folder another PS2 profile proves by hash, of the declared size, now take the placeholder's place in the pack and in verify.
The manifest resolved core files without the data directories: blueMSX's pack carried its own MSX2P.rom while the manifest named another dump for the installer.
A multi-system profile shipped every entry: the Lynx system pack carried 34 PlayStation, Saturn and Apple II files from mednafen. The entry's own system decides, as the platform pack and the installer already do.
verify kept the worst verdict on the raw destination, the builder the first one it read. Both now key on the sanitized path and let a declaration that holds a file fill one that finds nothing.
Manifests list each data directory's source archive and the hash of
every file; the installer rebuilds the tree from the archive and keeps
only the files whose hash matches.
The RetroArch list is folded for Windows and macOS. Its manifest
now carries the names a case-keeping directory also needs, and the
installer adds them after probing the BIOS directory.
Abdessamad Derraz