feat(release): publish Linux .deb alongside AppImage

[chukfinley]

Closes #298.

One open question

Maintainer: is a mandatory Debian control field, so the deb target needs an address. I used hello@t3.tools as a placeholder — I have no way to know which mailbox you want on it, and I did not want to quietly invent one that bounces. Tell me the right address and I'll amend; it is a single string.

Why this is smaller than you'd expect

--target deb already works. createBuildConfig passes the target straight through to electron-builder, and the artifact copy step is target-agnostic. Nothing in the pipeline needs restructuring.

A deb build fails today for exactly one reason: app-builder-lib's FpmTarget requires two metadata fields the staged package.json omits. AppImage needs neither, so nothing ever surfaced it:

// app-builder-lib/out/targets/FpmTarget.js
if (projectUrl == null) {
  errors.push("Please specify project homepage, ...")
}
let author = options.maintainer
if (author == null) {
  const a = packager.info.metadata.author
  if (a == null || a.email == null) {
    errors.push(errorMessages.authorEmailIsMissed)   // author is "T3 Tools", no email
  } else {
    author = `${a.name} <${a.email}>`
  }
}
if (errors.length > 0) throw new Error(errors.join("\n\n"))

Add homepage, add maintainer. That is the feature.

The artifact-name collision

#1655 was closed partly because "the artifact-name collision remains unresolved". That collision is a consequence of adding a second Linux matrix entry: the upload step names artifacts desktop-${{ matrix.platform }}-${{ matrix.arch }}, so a linux/deb/x64 entry produces desktop-linux-x64 — the same name the AppImage entry already uses. upload-artifact then fails.

This PR adds no matrix entry. The existing Linux entry builds both targets in one electron-builder run (target: AppImage,deb), so there is one artifact name, one runner, and no collision by construction. The output files don't collide either — artifactName's ${ext} already separates .AppImage from .deb.

Side effect: no extra runner and no second full desktop build, so release wall-clock is unchanged.

Changes

File	Change
scripts/build-desktop-artifact.ts	Add homepage + maintainer; split target on commas so one Linux run can emit several targets.
.github/workflows/release.yml	Linux matrix builds AppImage,deb; add *.deb to the collect step and to both release upload lists.
package.json	dist:desktop:deb for local builds, matching the existing dist:desktop:* family.

Note the two softprops/action-gh-release blocks (first-release and subsequent-release) each carry their own file list — both needed *.deb, otherwise the package builds and never ships.

Verification

Built on Ubuntu 24.04, x64, from this branch:

$ vp run dist:desktop:artifact --platform linux --target AppImage,deb --arch x64 \
    --build-version 0.0.29-nightly.20260716.825

[desktop-artifact] Done. Artifacts:
  T3-Code-0.0.29-nightly.20260716.825-amd64.deb          (194 MB)
  T3-Code-0.0.29-nightly.20260716.825-x86_64.AppImage    (256 MB)

$ dpkg -I T3-Code-0.0.29-nightly.20260716.825-amd64.deb
 Package: t3code
 Version: 0.0.29~nightly.20260716.825
 Architecture: amd64
 Maintainer: T3 Tools <hello@t3.tools>
 Installed-Size: 757008
 Depends: libgtk-3-0, libnotify4, libnss3, libxss1, libxtst6, xdg-utils,
          libatspi2.0-0, libuuid1, libsecret-1-0
 Recommends: libappindicator3-1
 Homepage: https://github.com/pingdotgg/t3code
 Description: T3 Code desktop build

dpkg -c shows the executable at /opt/T3 Code*/t3code and the .desktop entry at /usr/share/applications/t3code.desktop. Installs and launches via sudo apt install ./T3-Code-*-amd64.deb.

Deliberately not included

• No .deb card on the marketing download page — happy to add it here or in a follow-up, but it seemed better to keep the release-pipeline change reviewable on its own.
• No rpm. The same FpmTarget covers it, so it is a one-word matrix change later if you want it.

---

Note

Low Risk
Changes are limited to release packaging metadata and CI asset globs; no runtime app logic or auth paths are touched.

Overview
Linux releases now ship a .deb package in addition to the existing AppImage, without adding a second CI matrix job or duplicate Linux builds.

The release workflow’s Linux x64 step builds AppImage,deb in one run, collects *.deb with other desktop assets, and attaches them in both GitHub release upload paths. build-desktop-artifact.ts adds deb-required homepage and maintainer on the staged package.json, sets maintainer in the Linux electron-builder config, and splits comma-separated target values so multiple Linux formats emit distinct files via ${ext}. Root package.json adds dist:desktop:deb for local deb-only builds.

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit b70739b. Bugbot is set up for automated code reviews on this repo. Configure here.}

Note

Publish Linux .deb artifact alongside AppImage in release workflow

• Updates release.yml to build both AppImage and deb targets by passing a comma-separated list to the Linux job matrix, and includes *.deb files in release asset uploads.
• Updates build-desktop-artifact.ts to split the target string on commas, adds a maintainer field for deb packaging, and populates homepage in the staged package.json (required by the deb target).
• Adds a dist:desktop:deb npm script in package.json for local deb builds targeting Linux x64.

^{Macroscope summarized b70739b.}

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Approvability

Verdict: Approved

This PR adds .deb package support to the Linux release process through minor CI/CD workflow and build configuration changes. No runtime application behavior is affected - the changes only add a new distribution format alongside the existing AppImage.

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