Initial MSI implementation, based on Briefcase #1084

mhsmith · 2025-10-09T13:51:32Z

Description

Initial work towards:

Requires Briefcase to be installed in the environment, including the following updates:

As discussed, this PR is sufficient to build a simple MSI installer (with no install-time options) from the miniconda3 recipe. After the Briefcase updates are merged, I'll post a comment here with instructions on how to do that.

@freakboy3742: FYI

Checklist - did you ...

Add a file to the news directory (using the template) for the next release's release notes?
Add / update necessary tests?
Add / update outdated documentation?

conda-bot · 2025-10-09T13:52:03Z

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In order for us to review and merge your code, please e-sign the Contributor License Agreement PDF. We then need to manually verify your signature, merge the PR (conda/infrastructure#1222), and ping the bot to refresh the PR.

travishathaway · 2025-10-09T15:12:29Z

@conda-bot check

jaimergp · 2025-10-13T09:14:39Z

constructor/briefcase.py

+    msi_paths = list(dist_dir.glob("*.msi"))
+    if len(msi_paths) != 1:
+        raise RuntimeError(f"Found {len(msi_paths)} MSI files in {dist_dir}")
+    shutil.copy(msi_paths[0], info["_outpath"])


Should this be a move command instead? In heavy installers and reduced disk storage availability, it might be the difference between success and error.

jaimergp · 2025-10-13T09:15:42Z

constructor/data/construct.schema.json

      "enum": [
        "all",
        "exe",
+        "msi",


This change should be applied in _schema.py and then propagated.

jaimergp · 2025-10-13T09:16:19Z

tests/test_briefcase.py

We should also have an integration test in test_examples.py once the dependencies are ready.

I think most integration tests have installer_type: all, which will break if features are missing. I suggest replacing them with installer_type: {{ 'exe' if sys.platform == 'win32' else 'all' for those that fail because of missing features. That will also give us a good idea about when we have feature parity.

@mhsmith just for completeness, I've added (and working on finalizing it) the integration tests in test_examples.py in this branch: https://github.com/lrandersson/constructor/tree/briefcase
I branched from the branch that's in this PR.

mhsmith · 2025-10-29T16:29:24Z

Testing instructions

Check out the following repositories:

constructor, on this PR branch
https://github.com/beeware/briefcase, on the main branch
https://github.com/anaconda/installers, on the main branch

Run these commands:

conda env create -f constructor\dev\environment.yml
conda activate constructor-dev
pip install -e .\constructor .\briefcase
set INSTALLER_VERSION=25.9.0-99  # or any other build number
set PY_VER=3.13
set EXT=msi
constructor installers\products\miniconda3\recipe

The MSI will be generated in the working directory.

mhsmith · 2025-10-30T20:35:41Z

Remaining features required for production use

[Moved to #967]

marcoesters

My biggest change request is to get the dependencies right. Specifically, briefcase is missing from the list. I'm also a little concerned about how tightly this is bound to Python conventions.

marcoesters · 2025-11-12T23:35:47Z

constructor/briefcase.py

+    name = info["name"]
+    if not name:
+        raise ValueError("Name is empty")


Suggested change

name = info["name"]

if not name:

raise ValueError("Name is empty")

if not (name := info.get("name")):

raise ValueError("Name is empty")

If we are concerned about empty values, we should use get, too.

I fixed it in mhsmith#1

I've copied that fix to this PR.

marcoesters · 2025-11-12T23:42:44Z

tests/test_briefcase.py

I think most integration tests have installer_type: all, which will break if features are missing. I suggest replacing them with installer_type: {{ 'exe' if sys.platform == 'win32' else 'all' for those that fail because of missing features. That will also give us a good idea about when we have feature parity.

marcoesters · 2025-11-12T23:46:43Z

constructor/briefcase.py

+    if not name:
+        raise ValueError("Name is empty")
+
+    # Briefcase requires version numbers to be in the canonical Python format, and some


Python is not fully compatible with SemVer, so that could be a pretty significant limitation.

It will at least require a few version changes in our integration test examples:

constructor/examples/scripts/construct.yaml

Line 5 in 170417a

version: X

Fixed temporarily in mhsmith#1

As far as MSI is concerned, the version number is only used for 2 purposes:

Display in the installed apps list. This is just for the user's information, so I think it's acceptable if some of the construct.yaml version gets moved into the name for display purposes, as long as all the information is still present.

Blocking the installer of an old version if a new version is already installed. Since constructor itself doesn't define any version ordering rules, it's impossible to do this perfectly for all version schemes. The current code covers a reasonably large number of cases, but it could be extended if necessary.

Notice the current code only uses the last valid Python package version number it finds. This is to accommodate the Miniconda construct.yaml file, which sets version to something like py313_25.1.2-3. It's better to transform this into 25.1.2.3 rather than 313.25.1.2.3.

For versions with no numbers in them at all, we could either reject them as the PR currently does, or display a warning and fall back to a default like 0.0.1 or 1.0.0. That's probably a good idea, since it would allow all existing construct.yaml files to at least build, and the integration tests wouldn't need to change so much.

I've made it use a default of 0.0.1, so that if a valid version is added in the future, it'll be treated as an upgrade.

marcoesters · 2025-11-12T23:51:43Z

constructor/briefcase.py

+    strip_chars = " .-_"
+    before = info["version"][:start].strip(strip_chars)
+    after = info["version"][end:].strip(strip_chars)
+    name = " ".join(s for s in [name, before, after] if s)


So, for something like Miniconda3-py310_25.9.1-3-Windows-x86_64.msi, we have the following?

name = Miniconda3 py310 version = 25.9.1.3

Yes, those would be the name and version from Briefcase's point of view, and that's how they'd be displayed in the Windows apps list.

The current code can generate these values from a construct.yaml file where py310 is part of the version. There's an example of that in test_name_version in test_briefcase.py.

marcoesters · 2025-11-13T00:09:50Z

constructor/briefcase.py

+# different versions of a product.
+def get_bundle_app_name(info, name):
+    # If reverse_domain_identifier is provided, use it as-is, but verify that the last
+    # component is a valid Python package name, as Briefcase requires.


Since constructor doesn't require Python-based packages, will we run into issues with non-Python namespaces?

As with the version, I guess we could make a best effort to transform it into something valid. In the case of MSI, this value is only used internally by Briefcase and is never visible to the user. So it doesn't matter if it's slightly different to the construct.yaml value, as long as it's consistent.

marcoesters · 2025-11-13T21:33:49Z

constructor/briefcase.py

+    briefcase = Path(sysconfig.get_path("scripts")) / "briefcase.exe"
+    logger.info("Building installer")
+    run(
+        [briefcase, "package"] + (["-v"] if verbose else []),
+        cwd=tmp_dir,
+        check=True,
+    )


I have two questions here:

Is it possible to use briefcase as an API rather than a CLI?

This looks like Windows - do we need any guards here?

Either way, we should make sure that briefcase.exe exists before calling it.

I added 2) in mhsmith#1, the check for briefcase.exe is also there

No, the CLI is the only stable interface.

The check in mhsmith#1 looks good to me. The fact that we're running on WIndows is already guarded by os_allowed in main.py.

I've copied the briefcase.exe check to this PR.

marcoesters · 2025-11-13T21:34:34Z

constructor/briefcase/run_installation.bat

@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+_conda constructor --prefix . --extract-conda-pkgs


Let's use absolute paths instead of relative paths.

marcoesters · 2025-11-13T21:40:31Z

pyproject.toml

    "jinja2",
-    "jsonschema >=4"
+    "jsonschema >=4",
+    "tomli-w >=1.2.0",


Since this is only needed for MSI installers, this should probably only be added for Windows - same in the recipe.

This is also missing briefcase as a dependency.

In mhsmith#1

I've updated pyproject.toml, meta.yaml and environment.yml. A new enough version of Briefcase is now on conda-forge, so it no longer needs to be installed manually.

Briefcase 0.3.26 also has a couple of new MSI features:

Interactive selection of the install directory.

Uninstaller options – though as it says here, these currently only appear when you choose "Modify" from the app list rather than "Uninstall", so we'll need to revisit this in the future.

mhsmith · 2025-11-19T17:09:24Z

To keep all the discussion in one place, I've merged mhsmith#1 into this PR, and sent an invite to @lrandersson to give him access to to push to the branch directly.

mhsmith · 2025-12-08T21:11:20Z

On second thoughts, this PR is getting big enough already, and I'm probably not the best person to review the subsequent PRs. So I'll un-merge mhsmith#1 from this PR, and I suggest we proceed as follows:

I update this PR to deal with the existing comments, so we can merge it into the briefcase-integration branch.
Robin re-creates mhsmith#1 and mhsmith#2 as PRs in conda/constructor, targeted at the briefcase-integration branch.

marcoesters · 2025-12-16T20:21:31Z

dev/environment.yml

+  - briefcase >=0.3.26  # [win]
+  - tomli-w >=1.2.0  # [win]


Environment YAML files do not recognize these selectors as far as I know. the pillow line doesn't make sense. I'd rather remove those Windows specific dependencies here.

Those dependencies should go into extra-requirements-windows.txt

OK, I've moved the 2 new requirements to extra-requirements-windows.txt. The pillow line was already there, so I'll leave it alone to avoid conflict with any fix on the main branch.

…irements-windows.txt

* Initial prototype as shown in demo * Switch to install_launcher option * Update schema properly * Move MSI file rather than copying it * Add fallbacks for invalid versions and app names * Use absolute paths in install script * Check that briefcase.exe exists * Add briefcase to dependencies, and make it and tomli-w Windows-only * Move Windows-specific dependencies from environment.yml to extra-requirements-windows.txt --------- Co-authored-by: Marco Esters <mesters@anaconda.com>

Initial prototype as shown in demo

c6c4134

conda-bot mentioned this pull request Oct 9, 2025

Adding CLA signee mhsmith conda/infrastructure#1222

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jaimergp reviewed Oct 13, 2025

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Merge branch 'main' into briefcase

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marcoesters changed the base branch from main to briefcase-integration October 14, 2025 15:01

mhsmith added 3 commits October 29, 2025 15:36

Switch to install_launcher option

201a3ed

Update schema properly

a12eb59

Move MSI file rather than copying it

52b3d34

mhsmith mentioned this pull request Oct 30, 2025

Use Briefcase as an installer backend #967

Open

2 tasks

This was referenced Nov 6, 2025

MSI: Registry entries not removed during uninstall beeware/briefcase#2554

Closed

MSI: Add proper uninstallation #1102

Open

MSI: Add a UI dialog with additional installation options #1103

Open

mhsmith marked this pull request as ready for review November 12, 2025 07:57

mhsmith requested a review from a team as a code owner November 12, 2025 07:57

marcoesters requested changes Nov 13, 2025

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lrandersson mentioned this pull request Nov 14, 2025

Initial set of MSI integration tests mhsmith/constructor#1

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3 tasks

mhsmith force-pushed the briefcase branch from 97776df to 5d3c3cd Compare November 19, 2025 17:00

mhsmith force-pushed the briefcase branch from 5d3c3cd to 52b3d34 Compare December 8, 2025 21:11

mhsmith added 4 commits December 9, 2025 13:52

Add fallbacks for invalid versions and app names

0101c62

Use absolute paths in install script

8e79869

Check that briefcase.exe exists

93ce7aa

Add briefcase to dependencies, and make it and tomli-w Windows-only

2a99674

mhsmith requested a review from marcoesters December 9, 2025 14:27

lrandersson mentioned this pull request Dec 9, 2025

MSI: Integration tests #1133

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3 tasks

marcoesters reviewed Dec 16, 2025

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Move Windows-specific dependencies from environment.yml to extra-requ…

2cd9d19

…irements-windows.txt

mhsmith requested a review from marcoesters December 17, 2025 13:25

marcoesters approved these changes Dec 17, 2025

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github-project-automation bot moved this from 🏗️ In Progress to ✅ Approved in 🔎 Review Dec 17, 2025

marcoesters merged commit 26ee3bb into conda:briefcase-integration Dec 17, 2025
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github-project-automation bot moved this from ✅ Approved to 🏁 Done in 🔎 Review Dec 17, 2025

		@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
		_conda constructor --prefix . --extract-conda-pkgs

Initial MSI implementation, based on Briefcase #1084

Initial MSI implementation, based on Briefcase #1084

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Description

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Testing instructions

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Remaining features required for production use

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