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  SHIPPING WINDOWS ALPHA
  Gnomad Webcanvas · docs/blog/2026-06-24-windows-alpha-security.md
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SHIPPING WINDOWS ALPHA — SECURITY HARDENING AND PLATFORM SPLIT
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Date: 2026-06-24  
Version: v0.1.0-alpha.1 (Windows only)  
Linux / macOS: remain on v0.1.0-beta.6

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Today we cut the first Windows Alpha for Gnomad Webcanvas — a separate channel from the Linux and macOS beta builds you may already be running. We have not done much hands-on Windows QA yet, so we're calling this alpha and keeping beta releases for the platforms we ship daily.

WHY A SEPARATE WINDOWS CHANNEL?
-------------------------------

Linux Beta 6 has been our daily driver on Fedora/Nobara. Windows needs its own bundle config (NSIS, WebView2 bootstrapper, file associations) and its own path-security rules. Rather than risk breaking Linux/macOS installers, we:

  1. Split Tauri config into platform overlays (tauri.linux.conf.json, tauri.macos.conf.json, tauri.windows.conf.json)
  2. Split CI so *v-alpha tags build Windows only; v-beta tags still build Linux + macOS*
  3. Pinned Linux/macOS artifact version to beta.6 in their configs while Windows ships alpha.1

WHAT WE DID TODAY
-----------------

AI-assisted code review

We ran parallel reviews with GLM 5.1, Kimi K2.6, and Qwen3.5 122B (all via NVIDIA NIM), then implemented their consensus P0 fixes:

  • Path guard — cross-platform path_guard.rs using the dirs crate; component-wise checks on Windows (fixes USERPROFILE and prefix-confusion bugs)
  • Guarded IPC — removed unrestricted Tauri fs writes; all file I/O goes through validated Rust commands
  • CSP — dropped unsafe-inline from script-src in the desktop shell
  • Async I/O — file reads/writes run off the main thread
  • Updater — release tag validation, HTTP timeouts, install completes before user-triggered restart

Reports live in reviews/ in the repo.

Platform code layout

  [code]
    src-tauri/
      tauri.conf.json          # shared shell
      tauri.windows.conf.json  # NSIS, file associations, alpha version
      tauri.linux.conf.json    # deb/rpm/AppImage, beta.6
      tauri.macos.conf.json    # app/dmg, beta.6
      src/menu/windows.rs      # Windows menu routing
    src/platform/windows.ts    # Windows runtime helper

See PLATFORM_SPLIT.md for the full map.

DOWNLOAD
--------

  Platform  |  Channel        |  Get it                                  
  Windows   |  Alpha 1        |  GitHub Release v0.1.0-alpha.1 · Get page
  Linux     |  Beta 6         |  v0.1.0-beta.6 release                   
  macOS     |  Beta 6         |  same as Linux                           
  Web       |  Always latest  |  Play in browser                         

Windows Alpha expectations

  • NSIS .exe installer (WebView2 bootstrapper downloads if needed)
  • File associations for .html, .css, .js, .md
  • Unsigned — SmartScreen may warn until we configure code signing
  • Please report bugs

WHAT'S NEXT
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  • Real-world Windows QA (save/open, associations, updater, multi-monitor)
  • Code signing for SmartScreen
  • Promote Windows to beta when we're confident — without touching Linux/macOS version pins

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Built with ❤️ by Gnomad Studio 🦙

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Built with ❤️ by Gnomad Studio 🦙
https://gnomadstudio.org
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