How the omnirush.ai desktop app finds, downloads, and installs new versions, and what a release must contain for that to work.
The Updates page (Settings > Updates) and the "Check for Updates..." menu item call the Electron main process (apps/desktop/electron/updater.mjs), which drives electron-updater with the generic provider:
- The updater fetches the update manifest for this platform from the feed directory (below) and compares its
versionwith the installed version. - "Download" fetches the file the manifest lists for the running platform and architecture and verifies its
sha512against the manifest. - "Install" applies it. On Windows (NSIS) and Linux (AppImage) the installer runs in place; on macOS the behaviour depends on the app's code signature (see below).
With "Check automatically" enabled the page checks every 15 minutes while the app is focused; "Download automatically" downloads as soon as an update is found. On a public install the check contacts only github.com: omnirush.ai has no hosted Den control plane, so no organization release inventory or policy is consulted unless a Den base URL was configured explicitly (desktop-bootstrap.json, a connect link, or Settings > Advanced).
Failures are shown verbatim on the page, minus the Error invoking remote method '...': prefix Electron adds to IPC failures.
| Channel | Feed directory | Manifest read by the app |
|---|---|---|
| Stable (the only public channel) | https://github.com/omnirush-ai/omnirush-gui/releases/latest/download |
latest-mac.yml, latest.yml (Windows), latest-linux.yml |
| Targeted recovery/rollback | https://github.com/omnirush-ai/omnirush-gui/releases/download/v<version> |
same names |
There is no public Alpha feed. A persisted or requested "alpha" channel is normalized back to "stable" and the channel selector stays hidden. A custom distribution can enable an Alpha channel by shipping an https feed directory in its electron-builder extraMetadata as omnirushAlphaUpdateFeedUrl (development runs may set OMNIRUSH_DESKTOP_ALPHA_UPDATE_FEED_URL); the Cloud and Enterprise flavors keep their parallel cloud*.yml / enterprise*.yml manifests on the stable feed.
For each platform the release needs the installers and the electron-builder update manifest next to them, all uploaded to the same GitHub release:
| Platform | Installers | Manifest |
|---|---|---|
| macOS Apple Silicon | omnirush-mac-arm64-<version>.zip (+.blockmap), omnirush-mac-arm64-<version>.dmg (+.blockmap) |
latest-mac.yml |
| Windows x64 | omnirush-win-x64-<version>.exe (+.blockmap) |
latest.yml |
| Linux x64 | omnirush-linux-x86_64-<version>.AppImage, omnirush-linux-x64-<version>.tar.gz |
latest-linux.yml |
The manifest is the file electron-updater reads; a release without it makes every installed app report a 404 when checking for updates (this is what happened to v1.0.2 through v1.0.4). electron-builder writes the manifest into apps/desktop/dist-electron/ whenever a publish block is configured, even with --publish never; the release workflow verifies it with apps/desktop/scripts/verify-update-manifest.mjs (version, listed files, sizes, sha512 checksums, and the required installer types) and fails the job if it is missing or inconsistent, then uploads it together with the installers.
To check a local package:
pnpm --filter @omnirush/desktop package:electron
node apps/desktop/scripts/verify-update-manifest.mjs --manifest apps/desktop/dist-electron/latest-mac.ymlSquirrel.Mac, which electron-updater uses to swap the app bundle on macOS, only installs an update whose code signature validates against the running app. Community builds are ad-hoc signed (no Apple Developer ID; see apps/desktop/scripts/electron-after-sign.cjs), so that validation always fails and an in-place install would silently do nothing.
The app therefore checks its own signature once at startup (codesign -dv --verbose=2 on the bundle). When the bundle is not Developer ID signed the Updates page reports install mode manual-dmg:
- "Download" fetches
omnirush-mac-arm64-<version>.dmgfrom the same feed directory and verifies thesha512listed inlatest-mac.yml. - "Open installer" opens the verified DMG, shows "Installer opened. Drag omnirush.ai to Applications, replace the old copy, then reopen it." and quits the app after a short delay.
Once releases are signed with a Developer ID (and notarized), the same code path detects the signature and uses the normal Squirrel in-place install and restart. Windows and Linux installs are in place regardless of signing.
Releases are built by the Desktop Release workflow (.github/workflows/release-desktop.yml) from a semantic-version tag:
git tag -a v1.0.5 -m "OmniRush.ai v1.0.5"
git push origin v1.0.5The workflow creates a draft release, stamps the version into the package manifests, builds each platform, verifies and uploads the installers and update manifests, generates SHA256SUMS.txt, and publishes the release as the latest one. Installed apps pick it up on their next check. See docs/RELEASING.md for rebuilding an existing tag and local packaging.
The release marked Latest on GitHub is the update feed, and an installed app only installs a version higher than its own. A release must therefore carry a version above every published release. v3.3.8 was tagged after v3.4.1 (from newer code) and published as Latest: apps on 3.4.x had nothing to update to, and apps the server required to reach 3.4.1 checked, found nothing newer than 3.3.8, and stopped. The workflow now refuses such a tag (scripts/release/verify-tag.mjs and scripts/release/latest-guard.mjs in the prepare job), marks a rebuild Latest only when it is not below the current Latest, and after publishing checks that every releases/latest/download/latest*.yml names the new version.
Raise the server's required version only after the release that satisfies it is published and marked Latest. When the feed has nothing newer than a required version, the required-update screen says so and its button opens the download page.
The Windows in-app updater can be exercised end to end with Build Electron Desktop (workflow_dispatch, updater_e2e_only): it installs published releases on a Windows runner and drives their own updater to a build stamped next_version (scripts/release/windows-updater-e2e.mjs).
Running a newer installer over the installed app updates it in place: on Windows the NSIS installer reuses the install folder and keeps %APPDATA%\ai.omnirush.desktop, which holds the chats (engine-data\omnirush\opencode.db), settings and the credentials vault key; uninstalling does not delete app data either (deleteAppDataOnUninstall is off). On macOS replace the app in Applications; data lives in ~/Library/Application Support/ai.omnirush.desktop.
- 1.0.8: update-path check release. No functional change over 1.0.7; used to verify the in-app updater end to end (check, download, install or open installer) on all three platforms.