Packaging & Distribution

The launcher ships as a NuGet package (for self-updates) and as a Windows installer (for first installs). This file describes what is produced, where it comes from, and how versions are set.

Artifacts

flowchart LR
    src["sources/launcher/Stride.Launcher/"]
    exe["Stride.Launcher.exe<br/>(self-contained single file)"]
    nupkg["Stride.Launcher.nupkg<br/>(NuGet, tools/Stride.Launcher.exe)"]
    setup["StrideSetup.exe<br/>(Advanced Installer)"]

    src --> exe
    exe --> nupkg
    exe --> setup

Artifact	Source	Consumed by
`Stride.Launcher.exe`	`dotnet publish` with FolderProfile.pubxml	`Stride.Launcher.nuspec` and `StrideSetup.exe`
`Stride.Launcher.nupkg`	Stride.Launcher.nuspec, packed by Stride.Launcher.Release.targets	`SelfUpdater`, for in-place updates
`StrideSetup.exe`	Setup/setup.aip	End users (first install), and launchers that must reinstall

The exe is self-contained and single-file: it needs no .NET install and no VC++ runtime. On first start it unpacks its content to %TEMP%\.net\Stride.Launcher\. Only PDBs stay outside the exe, so tools/Stride.Launcher.exe is the whole package.

The launcher itself has no prerequisites. The ones Game Studio needs are installed per Stride version, by Bin\Prerequisites\install-prerequisites.exe inside that version's package.

Versions

The version is set in one place: the <version> element of Stride.Launcher.nuspec. A pre-release adds -p:VersionSuffix=beta1 (alpha, beta, preview or rc, numbered 1 to 9: NuGet compares beta10 before beta2).

Stride.Launcher.Version.props reads it and appends the suffix, into StrideLauncherVersion, for both of the following.

Launcher exe. Stride.Launcher.csproj uses it as its Version. SelfUpdater compares the exe's AssemblyInformationalVersion against NuGet.
NuGet package. Stride.Launcher.Release.targets packs with -Version $(StrideLauncherVersion). It also fills the update lines of the description: $SetupUrl$ , the package's setup on its GitHub release, and $UpdateRules$ (see self-update.md). With -p:StrideLauncherLegacyReq=true (6.0.1 only), it packs the same exe as X.Y.Z-req too, for the launchers before 6.0.1.
StrideSetup. An MSI version is numbers only, so the GetStrideSetupVersion task (Setup/GetStrideSetupVersion.cs) maps the launcher version to major.minor.(patch * 100 + rank). The rank sorts pre-releases before their release: alpha 11-19, beta 31-39, preview 51-59, rc 71-79, release 99. For example, 6.1.0-beta1 is 6.1.31 and 6.1.0 is 6.1.99. The ProductCode is a name-based UUID of the launcher version: a new one for each version (MSI major upgrade), the same one when a version is built again. The real version (StrideVersion property) is what Add/Remove Programs shows.

The version values in the committed setup.aip are placeholders: PackageInstaller sets them on a copy (setup-generated.aip, git-ignored) and builds that.

Stride.Launcher.nuspec

<files>
    <file src="Stride.Launcher.exe" target="tools" />
</files>

Everything that must land next to the exe goes under tools/: SelfUpdater.UpdateLauncherFiles hard-codes const string directoryRoot = "tools/" and ignores anything outside it.

The <description> element is special: launchers read their update rules from it, the update: line from 6.0.1 and the force-reinstall: line before. See self-update.md. Launchers already installed read these lines; do not remove them.

Setup/

Setup/setup.aip builds StrideSetup.exe. It installs:

Stride.Launcher.exe.
A Start menu shortcut with Launcher.ico.
The Add/Remove Programs entry. Uninstalling runs Stride.Launcher.exe /uninstall first, which uninstalls the Stride versions.

The build names the setup StrideSetup-<version>.exe (e.g. StrideSetup-6.0.1.exe), which goes to the GitHub release (launcher/<version>). A launcher that must reinstall downloads it from there (setup= of the update rules). The download button of the website is stride-download-url in _data/site.json of the stride-website repository: on a release (not a pre-release), release-launcher.yml points it to the new setup and pushes to stride-website with GH_PAT.

Building

The targets are in Stride.Launcher.Release.targets, run through Stride.build, which imports it. The setup needs Advanced Installer 22.0:

msbuild build\Stride.build /t:FullBuildLauncher /p:StrideSign=false [/p:VersionSuffix=beta1]

FullBuildLauncher publishes the exe (BuildLauncher), packs the nupkg (PackageLauncher) and builds the setup (PackageInstaller), all into bin\launcher\. _StrideSetupVersion only prints the computed versions, without Advanced Installer.

Releases go through release-launcher.yml (manual run, optional version-suffix, checkpoint and legacy-req). It creates a launcher/<version> GitHub release with the setup (a pre-release is marked as one), then pushes the nupkg to NuGet.org, whose update lines point to that setup.

If the deploy fails, e.g. on the NuGet push, use "Re-run failed jobs": the deploy runs again with the same build, the existing GitHub release gets the setup again, and NuGet skips the packages it already has. "Re-run all jobs" stops at the version check, as the launcher/<version> tag exists.