Continuous deployment

itch is continuously being built, tested, and deployed, to help us keep it high-quality and low on bugs.

Repository setup

The main repository for itch is hosted on GitHub:

For final deployment, we maintain a GitLab remote where builds are executed on our own self-hosted runners. These runners handle code signing for executables and publishing releases to itch.io using butler.

Build scripts

GitLab CI uses a YAML configuration file. Its format is detailed in the GitLab CI documentation.

itch's CI config is relatively straight-forward, most of the complexity lives in individual shell scripts in the release/ directory.

Unit tests & linting

The codebase is covered by a certain amount of unit tests, in src/tests.

On every commit, the CI executes all unit tests, and runs the TypeScript compiler in check mode to make sure that there are no compile errors.

Building

The building scripts run some common steps on every platform:

  • Compiling TypeScript code to ES2017, into several bundles
  • Bundling static asset files

Packaging

Windows

.exe + resources is built with electron-packager, then electron-winstaller generates -full.nupkg, -delta.nupkg, and RELEASES, needed for Squirrel.Windows update.

macOS / OS X

.zip is built with 7za (7-zip command-line), .dmg is built with node-appdmg, with a custom background made in GIMP.

Linux

The .desktop file is generated via release/X.desktop.in files + sed. All locale files are parsed for translations of the app's name and description.

deb & rpm packages are generated thanks to fpm.

Publishing releases

All release artifacts are signed on our self-hosted GitLab runners and then published directly to itch.io using butler. Butler handles uploading, diffing, and serving updates to users.

Downloads are available at:

The canary channel

When making large structural changes, it is sometimes useful to have a completely separate version of the app with no expectations of stability.

kitch is exactly that. It is meant to be installed in parallel of the stable app, and has a distinct branding (blue instead of itch.io hot pink), uses different folders (%APPDATA%/kitch, ~/.config/kitch, ~/Library/Application Support/kitch).

It can be downloaded from itch.io:

Additionally:

  • Do expect the canary version to break on occasion
  • Do report back if you try it and you've found an issue that doesn't seem to be on the issue tracker

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