Comments only, no assertion logic, pins or leg definitions touched.
Reflowed every rationale block to denser wording and removed the
duplication that had built up across repeated steps: the desktop
workflow repeated the fork-PR skip, the desktop-v* tag resolution and
the restore-runner note once per platform, and the installer workflow
repeated its path-filter rationale in both the pull_request and push
blocks. Those now point at the first copy.
Every WHY is kept: why the masked legs avoid install.sh --local, what
UNSLOTH_CI_SOURCE_OVERLAY is for, why `absent` tests "must not work"
rather than command -v, why the .venv_t5_* sidecars are in the macho
scan scope, why the signature check is main-executables-only, why each
nobuild allowlist entry is a pure-Python sdist, why the WSL job gates
and what the pipe truncation was, and why the virgin container's
overlay=false row is still pinned.
Proved comments-only three ways: both workflow revisions parsed with
yaml.safe_load_all and every leaf walked (only `run:` scalars differ);
every changed bash body and .sh compared byte-for-byte after
`bash --pretty-print -n`; every changed pwsh body and .ps1 compared as
a token stream with Comment and NewLine tokens dropped. A negative
control injecting one non-comment line into each layer makes all of
them fail.
Assert arch and signature on every downloaded Mach-O. This is the one genuine
gap the simulation had: Rosetta 2 is preinstalled on hosted runners and absent
from a factory-fresh Mac, so an x86_64-only llama.cpp, whisper.cpp, Node or uv
payload runs green here and dies with "bad CPU type in executable" for the
user. llama-server launching under `assert-llama-loads.sh` does not rule that
out, because Rosetta makes it launch. The new `macho` check reads `file -b`
(`lipo` is an xcrun shim and is gone after masking, as the desktop lane already
notes) and keys the expected arch off `uname -m`, so macos-15-intel expects
x86_64. It also requires at least an ad-hoc signature on arm64, which closes
the AMFI "Killed: 9" class that uv has already been bitten by; the check is
skipped on x86_64, where unsigned code loads fine and so is not the same
defect. It fails when the scan finds nothing, since an empty scan reads exactly
like a clean one.
Make absence real rather than PATH-hidden. uv probes well-known interpreter
locations and the framework loader ignores PATH entirely, so hiding the
toolcache only hid it from `command -v`. Empty /usr/local (it EXISTS on a
factory-fresh Mac as a SIP-exempt firmlink, and is empty; it is /usr/local/bin
that is absent, so the directory itself stays), move the hosted toolcache and
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework aside, and clear the developer dotdirs and
caches. A populated uv or pip cache can also satisfy a resolution that would
fail on a user's machine. Every removal goes through --remove and is recorded
in the generated restore.sh, guarded so a path the install recreated is not
buried inside its own restore.
Unset CI, GITHUB_* and RUNNER_* for the installer process only. An installer
branching on CI=true is a hidden dependency no consumer exercises. Scoped to
the child so the step's own $GITHUB_OUTPUT still resolves.
Record spctl --status and csrutil status. Neither is documented for these
images and both change what a binary is allowed to do.
The desktop workflow claims all three platforms are stripped, but only macOS
and Windows had a strip step and the Windows one scrubbed the process PATH
only. Both gaps let a bundle that needs a developer toolchain pass the one
workflow whose premise is that it must not.
Linux: the job ignored strip_toolchain entirely and ran the bundled install.sh
with the runner's git, gcc, cmake and make in /usr/bin. clean-machine-env.sh
now has a Linux --remove branch that moves the resolved tool binaries aside,
recorded in restore.sh, and the job calls it plus `assert absent` after the apt
step (the .deb install needs dpkg) and before the bundled installer, with a
restore step to match macOS. The loop repeats per tool so a name present in
both /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin is fully masked rather than half masked.
Windows: rewriting $env:PATH does not survive the bundled install.ps1, which
calls Refresh-SessionPath (318-337) and rebuilds $env:Path from the Machine and
User registry values, and py.exe in C:\Windows reaches the toolcache whatever
PATH says. Ported the on-disk toolcache rename, the Machine/User registry scrub
and the py -3.11/-3.12/-3.13 start probe from clean-machine-install-ci.yml, so
the strip is proven rather than assumed.
Windows preflight: the log step was Test-Path, Get-Content and Select-String,
none of which can fail, so an app that hangs before preflight passed on the
90 second liveness check alone. It now asserts a tauri.log exists and carries a
`desktop_preflight completed disposition=` line, the same unconstrained check
macOS and Linux already make. The disposition VALUE is deliberately not
constrained: ManagedReady over an unbootable venv is the reported bug.
installer_source on macOS: only the pipe delivery branched on it, so a
`published` dispatch ran the checked-out script on six of the eight macOS rows
while the run was labelled published. The script is now resolved once at the
top of the Install step and used by the file and tauri deliveries; pipe still
re-fetches through the live transport, because that is half of what it tests.
Linux, WSL and Windows already honoured the input.
Also shortened the comments across the changed files, keeping the reasoning
that says why each check exists.
Compress the comment blocks across the clean-machine workflows and
scripts. The explanations of why each check is written the way it is
stay; the padding, restatement and duplication go.
No code or workflow logic changes.
No job has ever run the installer on a machine without one.
studio-mac-install-matrix.yml is the only macOS installer job and it runs
'bash install.sh --local --no-torch' on runners that already have the Xcode CLT
selected and setup-python preinstalled, so the CLT gate never fires there, and
--local is precisely the mode that legitimately needs git. Repo-wide there was
zero coverage of xcode-select or CommandLineTools outside install.sh itself.
clean-machine-install-ci.yml runs the installer on a genuinely stripped machine.
macOS legs move /var/db/xcode_select_link, /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools,
/Applications/Xcode*.app and Homebrew aside, so xcode-select -p, git, cc and
clang really do fail, and restore unconditionally afterwards. Removing the
select-link alone is not enough: xcode-select falls through to a full Xcode.app
and re-arms /usr/bin/git. Linux legs use containers, which are genuinely clean.
Windows legs cover winget visible and masked, plus windows-11-arm. A WSL leg
covers the 126 lines of WSL-specific install.sh logic that had no runtime test.
Each macOS leg runs four deliveries: pipe (the advertised command, and the shape
that turns an early exit into curl (56)), file (separates installer logic from
pipe delivery), no-torch, and tauri (stdin closed, no tty, as the desktop app
invokes it). One leg records every toolchain invocation and asserts the trace,
which is the real deliverable: proof the installer never reached for a compiler
rather than proof it happened to succeed.
The asserts test that tools do NOT WORK rather than that they are absent from
PATH. On a real virgin Mac /usr/bin/git and /usr/bin/cc exist as CLT stubs, so
'command -v git' succeeds and only running it tells the truth.
desktop-app-clean-machine-ci.yml installs and launches the SHIPPED desktop app
release on a stripped machine, covering Gatekeeper and quarantine on macOS, NSIS
silent install on Windows, and Xvfb with WebKit2GTK on Linux.
Known limit, stated plainly: hosted macOS runners are developer machines. Masking
reproduces this bug and proves the installer does not invoke a toolchain, but it
cannot prove no hidden dependency exists on a truly virgin Mac. An ephemeral-VM
lane is the follow-up.
