totk-pc-recomp/docs/installer.md

Installer

A public release that turns the player's own game files into a playable TotK folder. The release carries no game data and no code derived from the game: the installer builds the game on the player's machine. The installed folder holds only the game; the installer and its tools stay outside it.

What the player does

1. Downloads TotK-Setup-<version>-windows.zip from GitHub Releases (none is published yet), unpacks it anywhere and starts TotK-Setup.exe.
2. Picks:
   • the base game (XCI or NSP) and the 1.2.1 or 1.4.3 update (NSP);
   • their prod.keys;
   • the game language and the install folder.
3. Waits for the setup, one time. The window shows each step and its progress.
4. Plays totk.exe from the install folder. The installer and the source NSP or XCI can be deleted.

The install folder (main.c portable_paths() reads this layout; it stays portable):

<install folder>/
  totk.exe, SDL3.dll, libopus-0.dll, totk_xlate.exe
  totk.ini                       language; the other keys as commented defaults (totk.ini.example)
  exefs/, romfs/                 extracted from the player's files
  profile/                       saves
  logs/                          totk.log of the last run, totk.1.log to totk.4.log of the runs before it
  shader and pipeline caches     prepared by the setup; shader-cache/shader-cache.pack holds the translations
  totk-install.json              what built this folder: release version, input hashes, finished steps

Updating the port

The player runs a newer installer on the same folder. It reads totk-install.json, keeps romfs/, exefs/, profile/ and totk.ini after checking their hashes, rebuilds totk.exe and re-prepares the shaders. A newer release that changes nothing game-derived skips the rebuild.

Given another update file than the recorded one (1.2.1, then 1.4.3), the installer extracts and builds again from it and keeps profile/. Saves carry over both ways: 1.4.3 converts a 1.2.1 save on load, and 1.2.1 loads the saves 1.4.3 wrote.

Setup steps

1. Check before writing anything: the files open with the keys, the update is 1.2.1 or 1.4.3 (by hash, as tools/extract.py), the keys are new enough for the update, enough space is free on the target disk (about 36 GiB at the peak of a first install, 20 GiB after it), the CPU has AVX2 (-march=x86-64-v3), a Vulkan 1.3 GPU exists. Each failure is one clear message.
2. Extract ExeFS and RomFS into the install folder and verify the hashes.
3. Lift the ExeFS to C (recomp/gen.py, recomp/patches-v121.txt or patches-v143.txt) into a temp folder next to the installer.
4. Compile the generated C, modules.c, romfs.c, patches.c and ov_zstd.c (they bake the per-install layout, RomFS hashes and the game version's patch page) and link them with the prebuilt runtime library into totk.exe (build_game.py --runtime-lib; about 3 min on 24 cores).
5. Prepare the RomFS patches and the shaders (tools/make_romfs_patches.py, tools/prepare_shaders.py, totk.exe --prepare-shaders) in the install folder, then fold the shader cache's loose files (four per shader, about 117,000) into shader-cache/shader-cache.pack (tools/pack_shader_cache.py). totk.exe reads the pack first and writes the translations it makes in play as loose files; running the tool again with the game closed folds those in. The patches are written twice: romfs-patches and romfs-patches-xbox (--xbox-prompts, the A/B and X/Y prompts swapped for pad_layout = xbox_prompts).
6. Clean up the temp folder (generated C and objects, about 1.3 GB).

A cancelled or failed setup resumes from the last finished step (totk-install.json).

Command line

installer/ (stdlib only; installer/layout.py maps the release folder and, in a repository, the dev toolchain):

python -m installer --base FILE --update FILE --keys FILE --lang CODE --dest DIR [--root DIR] [--temp DIR] [--verify]

• On a folder with totk-install.json only --dest is needed; the game files only when the extraction must run again.
• stdout: one JSON event per line, types start, plan, step (started, done, skipped), progress (step, phase, done/total/unit), space (bytes needed and free on the install disk and the temp disk), warning, error, end (installer/events.py). Messages are ids with parameters; installer/text/en.json holds their English text. The human-readable log goes to <temp>/logs/.
• Exit codes: 0 done, 1 failed, 2 bad command line, 3 cancelled. The window cancels with Ctrl+Break to the installer's process group.
• Each step records a key over its inputs (runner.py). A step with the recorded key and intact output is skipped, so resume and update are one rule; output kept from another release is re-hashed first.
• Peak space on the install disk is about 36 GiB, not 22: the extraction copies both Program NCAs (16.3 GiB) next to the merged RomFS (15.9 GiB) before it deletes them. The check computes the exact figure.
• Window (python -m installer.gui, installer/gui.py draws, installer/guilogic.py decides): form, step list with progress, space line, collapsible log, Cancel (Ctrl+Break to the CLI's process group, then it waits for the exit), finish screen with Open folder. English or Russian, chosen from the Windows display language, switchable in the window; every sentence is an id in installer/text/<en|ru>.json. A folder with totk-install.json needs only the folder. --selftest [--shots DIR] builds every screen in both languages and closes itself.
• tests/installer_gui_test.py: event model, form, catalogs, cancel, the self-closing window and one end-to-end run of the CLI in --verify mode (needs build/install-test and build/extracted/v121; see its docstring).
• tests/installer_test.py: bookkeeping with fake steps. tests/installer_e2e.py: a dev-mode run with the files of config.local.toml.

Release layout

The unpacked release; tools/make_release.py assembles it and --zip packs it:

TotK-Setup.exe        starts python/pythonw.exe -m installer.gui (installer/launcher/launcher.c, no console)
installer/            the installer: steps, CLI, window, en/ru text catalog
python/               Python 3.14.9 embeddable + numpy, lz4, cryptography, cffi, pycparser (+ tkinter for the window)
recomp/, tools/       the lifter and the build, extraction and shader scripts the steps run (copied from the repo)
llvm/                 llvm-mingw, x86_64-only subset (Apache-2.0 with LLVM exception; mingw-w64 parts permissive)
runtime/              libtotkrt.a and the headers the generated code and modules.c/romfs.c/patches.c include
bin/                  totk_xlate.exe, hactool.exe, SDL3.dll, libopus-0.dll, ninja.exe
data/                 shader_list.tsv (MacNativeGames, MIT)
THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md
totk.ini.example, VERSION  the default ini; the release string (the repository's VERSION plus the commit)

• SDL3 comes from the upstream release, not MSYS2: MSYS2's DLL imports the LGPL libiconv.
• Every bundled third-party piece gets a row in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.
• The release contains nothing game-derived; make_release.py runs tools/check_content.py over the folder before it finishes.

Constraints

• The installer steps contain no Win32 calls: Linux follows with its own compiler and the same steps.
• The keys file path is passed to the tools; key values never appear in the UI, logs or files.
• The window is a front end over the CLI (python -m installer --base ... --update ... --keys ... --lang ... --dest ...), which prints one JSON progress event per line. Tests and CI use the CLI.
• Paths may hold any Unicode characters (a Cyrillic user name puts the temp and install folders under it). Every exe the setup runs or builds reads its arguments and paths as UTF-8 through an activeCodePage manifest: hactool (our patch, building.md), totk.exe (runtime/totk.rc), ninja (upstream). The Python steps write their files and logs as UTF-8, and build_game.py quotes paths with spaces on its Ninja command lines.
• A game file whose data fails its hash checks or ends early stops the setup with check.input_damaged, which names the file and asks to copy it again (extract.DamagedFile). A failed merge checks the base Program NCA alone to tell which file is damaged.
• Unsigned exe: SmartScreen warns on first start.

Later

• Re-warm the driver cache on start after a move, GPU or driver change.
• NSZ and XCZ input. Linux release.