Sign the macOS bundle, or it arrives "damaged"

The first release could not be opened: macOS said "WarpEngine Store is damaged
and can't be opened. You should move it to the Bin."

Not a wording problem — an integrity one. electron-builder found no signing
identity and skipped signing, so the bundle kept only the linker's ad-hoc
signature on its main executable, with no resource seal. `codesign --verify` said
"code has no resources but signature indicates they must be present", and
Gatekeeper reports that as damaged and offers no way past it, unlike an
un-notarised app which can at least be approved.

`scripts/after-pack.js` now signs the bundle itself during packaging. Measured on
a copy unzipped from the artifact with the quarantine flag set by hand:

  before  code has no resources but signature indicates they must be present
  after   valid on disk; satisfies its Designated Requirement

and the identifier is ours rather than `Electron`. `syspolicy_check` is down to
its expected "adhoc signed" warning. A downloaded copy still has to be approved —
that is Gatekeeper policy for anything un-notarised, and notarisation needs a paid
Developer ID — so the README and the release notes lead with the one command that
does it.

Two smaller things the failure turned up:

- The self-test was passing silently. With a copy of the app already open, the
  second process lost the single-instance lock and exited 0 with no output, which
  reads exactly like success. It now uses its own user-data directory and skips
  the lock, and it caught a real launch failure immediately afterwards.
- The README claimed right-click ▸ Open was enough. It was not, and I had not
  checked it — replaced with what the measurements support.

v1.0.0's attachments are withdrawn rather than left downloadable.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
2026-08-18 11:55:17 +02:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent f88340d63c
commit e635a032ea
4 changed files with 79 additions and 11 deletions
+36 -8
View File
@@ -27,10 +27,27 @@ Grab the package for your machine from the
and open it. On first run, if there is no store on the machine yet, the window
offers to download one — that is the whole setup.
The macOS build is **not signed or notarised**, so the first open needs
*right-click ▸ Open* (or *System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security*). Nothing the
store itself downloads is affected: those files are fetched by Python, which does
not set the quarantine flag.
### Opening it on macOS
The build is ad-hoc signed but **not notarised**, so macOS asks before running a
copy that came from a browser. The reliable way through:
```sh
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/WarpEngine Store.app"
```
If macOS offers *Open Anyway* under **System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security** after
a blocked attempt, that works as well. Notarisation is the only thing that removes
the step entirely, and it needs a paid Apple Developer ID.
Nothing the store itself downloads is affected: Python fetches those files, and
Python does not set the quarantine flag.
**v1.0.0 could not be opened at all** — it reported *"is damaged"*. The bundle had
never been signed; only its main executable carried the linker's ad-hoc signature,
so there was no resource seal and Gatekeeper refused it outright rather than
asking. `scripts/after-pack.js` signs the bundle during the build now, and the
result verifies as `valid on disk`.
## Use
@@ -61,6 +78,10 @@ npm run dist:mac # or dist:win / dist:linux
is ESM-only, and older Node cannot `require()` it. The packaged app carries its
own runtime.
`npm run uitest` runs with its own user-data directory and without the
single-instance lock. Otherwise a copy the user already has open swallows the test
process, which exits 0 and reads as a pass.
Both test scripts accept a sandbox store instead of the real one, which is how
this repository is tested without touching a working installation:
@@ -95,10 +116,17 @@ too — that is why the indirection is there.
## Verified, and not
Exercised on macOS (arm64): the store is discovered, the catalog lists, a sync
installs, the window renders the installed state, and `npm run uitest` passes with
the grid rendered and both languages in the picker. The bootstrap download was run
into an empty directory and the resulting store answered the bridge.
Exercised on macOS (arm64), with the packaged app from the release rather than a
dev run: the store is discovered, the catalog lists, a sync installs, the window
renders the installed state, and `npm run uitest` passes with the grid rendered
and both languages in the picker. The bootstrap download was run into an empty
directory and the resulting store answered the bridge.
The signing was measured rather than assumed, by setting the quarantine flag on a
copy unzipped from the release artifact: `codesign --verify --deep --strict` is
clean, and `syspolicy_check` reports only the expected *"adhoc signed"* warning.
A quarantined copy is still stopped until it is approved — that part is Gatekeeper
policy, not a fault in the package.
**Not tried on Linux or Windows.** The paths and the launch behaviour are written
for them, and the store CLI itself has the same gap — `.desktop` and `.lnk`