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EVCore Studio is built and released as a portable Windows installer. This page covers the packaging script, what the build produces, how releases are published, and the requirements for a working release build.

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Packaging script

scripts/package-studio.ps1 (from the repository root) performs the full build:
  1. Builds and tests the firmware (scripts/run-all.ps1 -TestsOnly).
  2. Builds the customer installer with electron-builder. The output goes to dist/ by default, or to a local temp folder if the project is inside OneDrive (to avoid sync locks).
  3. Runs the desktop smoke test against the packaged EVCore Studio.exe, which checks that it offers no simulation.
  4. Produces dist/EVCore-Studio-<version>-win-x64.zip.
The script also supports Microsoft cloud code signing (Azure Trusted Signing) when the environment variables are set:
  • AZURE_SIGNING_ENDPOINT
  • AZURE_SIGNING_ACCOUNT
  • AZURE_SIGNING_PROFILE
  • AZURE_PUBLISHER_NAME
Plus secrets:
  • AZURE_TENANT_ID
  • AZURE_CLIENT_ID
  • AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET
If these are not present, the build is unsigned.

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What the build produces

The installer is portable: unzip and run. Uninstalling keeps the shop’s records and backups in %APPDATA%\EVCore Studio.

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Customer builds vs internal testing

Every GitHub release is a customer release. Customer builds exclude the in-app demo and the firmware simulator (extraMetadata: evcoreBuild: customer in electron-builder.yml). Internal testing, with the demo and the firmware simulator, runs from the source code (npm start in software/evcore-studio, or npm run package:win for a local unpacked build). Nothing internal is ever published to the releases repository.

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CI artifacts

Every push to GitHub produces the same zip as a CI artifact via the release-studio workflow. Pushing a tag studio-vX.Y.Z runs the full build in CI, signed when configured, and keeps the installer as a workflow artifact. The workflow never publishes automatically.

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Publishing a release

After local build and test:
  1. Bump version in software/evcore-studio/package.json.
  2. Add a ## X.Y.Z section at the top of CHANGELOG.md with the release notes users will see.
  3. Build and test locally with scripts/package-studio.ps1.
  4. Install that installer on a test computer and check it, including updating from the previous version with records in place.
  5. Publish with scripts/publish-studio.ps1 -Version X.Y.Z.
The publish script:
  • Publishes the tested installer in dist/ as vX.Y.Z.
  • Refuses a build that carries the simulator.
  • Refuses an unsigned installer unless -AllowUnsigned is given.

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Release hosting

Installers and update manifests live in the public repository csharness/evcore-studio-releases (releases only, never source code). The website download link points to:
Studio’s update feed is configured in software/evcore-studio/desktop/update-config.json. The updater checks the feed 30 seconds after start and every 6 hours, downloads new versions in the background, and installs only when the user chooses Restart and update or quits Studio. The page refuses to restart while a test is running.

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license-config.json requirement

A release build needs the account server settings in desktop/license-config.json. Until they are filled in, the packaged app opens on a “cannot sign in” screen. npm start has licensing off. To point Studio at the project:
A packaged Studio refuses to run until all three settings are present.