Ship a self-contained standalone release artifact

[3esmit]

Problem

The current standalone Nix package is a wrapper around a separate Nix-store binary and closure. Archiving only that output leaves absolute store references outside the archive, so the extracted download cannot launch on a clean recipient.

The alpha release workflow must not present that archive as a usable standalone download.

Acceptance criteria

• Choose a real distribution contract: a closure-aware Nix bundle/importer, a native Linux bundle, and an Apple-silicon macOS bundle.
• The downloaded artifact launches from a clean supported environment without relying on build-host store paths.
• Add a compiled-GUI smoke test from the extracted artifact on every released platform.
• Validate that the package contains every runtime dependency required by its launcher.
• Keep core/UI LGX alpha release automation independent so it can publish safely first.

[3esmit]

Source-owned release workflows merged in PR #57 at f1d000cda9b4a2cfad476f02dd487ae07391a685 after green CI and a final-lock standalone AppImage smoke with the build host Nix store hidden. Keeping this issue open until Inspector Core, Inspector UI, and standalone releases are published from this repository, downloaded, checksum/package-verified, and exercised through their released artifacts.

[3esmit]

rc8 recovery finding: Core Darwin and standalone macOS builds compile two Linux-only local-service helpers as unused code under warnings-as-errors. A focused follow-up PR restricts those helpers to Linux while retaining the parser in test builds.

The release issue remains open until all Core, UI, and standalone artifacts are published, downloaded, and exercised.

[3esmit]

The rc10 standalone release exposed the remaining macOS build boundary.

The Metal Toolchain download and xcrun --find metal both succeeded, but the nested RISC0 helper build still failed with:

error: cannot execute tool 'metal' due to missing Metal Toolchain
Could not build metal kernels

The failing dependency is logos-inspector-testnet-v02-helper → risc0-sys v1.5.0 → risc0-build-kernel. Its xcrun invocation inherits the stale Xcode tool lookup cache after the component download.

logos-blockchain/logos-execution-zone#629 fixed the identical RISC0 failure by exporting xcrun_nocache=1 only in the existing metal/metallib wrapper. The Inspector release flake has that same wrapper but lacks the cache bypass.

Planned fix: add the narrow cache bypass, assert it in the release-contract check, then rerun the macOS standalone release build and extracted-artifact smoke.

[3esmit]

The macOS release failure is now isolated to Linux-only system-service package-install code being compiled under macOS warnings-as-errors. PR #180 gates that implementation to Linux while keeping test coverage portable. Native Apple-silicon release verification will follow after the PR is merged.

[3esmit]

PR #180 merged after the full CI suite passed. Fresh CLI, Core LGX, and standalone release runs are now executing from main at b1152c0; the existing UI rc10 release remains published. This issue stays open until the new cross-platform assets are published, downloaded, and exercised.

[3esmit]

The standalone macOS release build on main reaches the Metal Toolchain provisioning step successfully, then fails inside the Nix build when risc0-sys runs xcrun metal.

The host tool is present, but xcrun retains a stale lookup while the Nix build wrapper clears the SDK selection. The scoped correction is to set xcrun_nocache=1 only for the wrapper’s metal and metallib calls. That is equivalent to xcrun --no-cache, leaves every other Xcode invocation unchanged, and will be covered by the release-workflow contract check.

I will validate it locally, submit it as a linked PR, and rerun the native macOS release before closing this issue.

[3esmit]

Correction after comparing the successful native Core release: the reusable release action built the same RISC Zero-backed Testnet helper with normal Nix build-user isolation. The failure is specific to standalone selecting Xcode_26.3.app; the successful build selected the runner-current Xcode.app and received a different working Metal component.

PR #182 no longer changes Nix build-user isolation. It now prefers the current Xcode and falls back only to installed Xcodes that advertise component-download support, while preserving the existing Metal xcrun wrapper and cache-bypass contract. Native macOS CI remains the required proof.