Phase 6: Windows Packaging¶

Goal¶

Produce a .zip archive containing ryll.exe from the Windows CI build and upload it as an artifact. Update installation documentation.

Current state¶

The Windows CI job already builds the release binary (with --no-default-features to skip capture) and runs tests.
No artifact is produced from the Windows build.
docs/installation.md has a Windows placeholder.

Design decisions¶

.zip, not .msi¶

Per the master plan, MSI installer is a future work item requiring WiX toolset. A .zip with the .exe inside is the simplest viable distribution — users extract and run.

No capture on Windows¶

Per the master plan decision (question 3), --capture mode is disabled on Windows. The installation docs should note this.

PowerShell for packaging¶

The Windows CI runner uses PowerShell by default. We use Compress-Archive (built into PowerShell 5.1+, available on all windows-latest runners) to create the zip.

Changes¶

Step 1: Add Windows zip creation to CI¶

Add steps to the Windows build job to package the binary and upload it as an artifact:

- name: Create Windows zip
  if: runner.os == 'Windows'
  shell: pwsh
  run: |
    Compress-Archive `
      -Path target\release\ryll.exe `
      -DestinationPath target\release\ryll-${{ matrix.target }}.zip

- name: Upload Windows zip
  if: runner.os == 'Windows'
  uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
  with:
    name: windows-zip
    path: target/release/ryll-*.zip
    retention-days: 30

Files changed: - .github/workflows/ci.yml — add two steps gated on runner.os == 'Windows'

Commit: standalone.

Step 2: Update documentation¶

Update docs/installation.md Windows section with real instructions.

Files changed: - docs/installation.md

Commit: standalone.

Step summary¶

Step	Description	Files	Commit
1	Create Windows zip in CI	`.github/workflows/ci.yml`	Yes
2	Update documentation	`docs/installation.md`	Yes

Risks and mitigations¶

SmartScreen warning: Unsigned .exe files trigger a Windows SmartScreen "unrecognized app" warning. Users must click "More info" then "Run anyway". Code signing is listed as future work in the master plan.
Missing Visual C++ Redistributable: The MSVC-built binary may depend on vcruntime140.dll. This is included in the Visual C++ Redistributable, which is installed on most Windows machines. If not, users need to install it. In practice, Rust statically links the CRT by default on MSVC targets (the +crt-static target feature), so this is unlikely to be an issue.

Open questions¶

None.

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