fix(todesktop): trim appFiles to stop re-uploading raw source

[claude]

Requested by James Kwon · Slack thread

Summary

The last two ToDesktop releases (v1.0.40-rc.1, v1.0.40) failed at the "Build with ToDesktop" step. James's read was right: it's the app-size check, not something else — confirmed via check-runs annotations (Process completed with exit code 1 on that step) and by reproducing the CLI's exact size-check logic and message locally.

Root cause: todesktop.json's appFiles is ["**", ...] with only 3 narrow exclusions, so it re-uploads almost the entire repo — including the ~23 MB src/ tree — instead of just what the packaged app needs. src/renderer/public/install-showcase-scene/ alone (~10 MB of .webm assets added in #1426, "live output showcase during the install wait") gets uploaded twice: once as source under src/, and again as the copy electron-vite writes to out/renderer/ at build time. That, plus e2e/, docs/, and various dev-only config files that ToDesktop's remote build never reads, pushed the uploaded archive to ~46.2 MB against a 30 MB uploadSizeLimit.

#1437 already merged raising uploadSizeLimit 30 → 60 MB as an immediate unblock (confirmed: merged 2026-08-21T18:30Z, after both failing runs — v1.0.40-rc.1 ran 08-20T05:17Z, v1.0.40 ran 08-21T04:30Z — so neither failing run had it, and no tag has been re-cut since). That PR's own description flagged trimming appFiles as the "follow-up optimization" over just raising the cap, per its "Alternative" note.

Changes

• todesktop.json: add exclusions to appFiles mirroring electron-builder.yml's already-proven-safe files list — src/**, e2e/**, docs/**, reference/**, .vscode/**, and the dev-only config files (playwright.config.ts, eslint.config.ts, electron.vite.config.*, vitest.*, tsconfig*.json, lint/format/env files, *.wsb). None of these are referenced by scripts/afterPack.mjs, scripts/todesktop-beforeBuild.cjs, or scripts/postinstall.mjs — ToDesktop's remote build only needs the pre-built out/, package.json, lib/, resources/, assets/, and locales/.

This is the root-cause trim rather than relying solely on the raised cap — it also restores headroom for the next asset-heavy feature instead of spending it all on removable dev files.

Verification

• Confirmed the failure mode from check-runs annotations on the failing commit (Process completed with exit code 1 on "Build with ToDesktop") and by extracting the ToDesktop CLI's own size-check source (@todesktop/cli dist/cli.js): it zips appFiles and errors with Your app is larger than {uploadSizeLimit}MB when the total exceeds it — this matches chore: raise todesktop uploadSizeLimit to 60 MB #1437's description and James's number exactly (30 MB limit, ~46.2 MB actual).
• Confirmed bootstrap-python/ (fetched fresh per-platform by ToDesktop's own beforeBuild hook, see scripts/todesktop-beforeBuild.cjs) is not part of the size-limited upload — it's excluded from appFiles and fetched separately on ToDesktop's build servers, so it's not a contributor here.
• Ran todesktop build --config=todesktop.json --dry-run --files locally (@todesktop/cli@1.28.0, with stub out/main/index.js and bootstrap-python/* placeholders to satisfy path validation, since a full pnpm install couldn't complete in this sandbox — see caveat below):
  • Before this change: appFiles-selected archive = 947 files, 27 MB (19.3 MB compressed).
  • After this change: appFiles-selected archive = 93 files, 4.32 MB (2.54 MB compressed) — and the dry-run file listing confirms src/, e2e/, docs/, tsconfig*, eslint.config.ts, etc. no longer appear.
  • The real build additionally includes the compiled out/ bundle (a few MB of JS + the 12 MB public/ copy, which I could not produce here — see caveat), so the real uploaded size will land higher than 4.32 MB, but the ~23 MB removed from src/ alone is more than enough to bring the true ~46.2 MB upload back under the original 30 MB cap, well within the new 60 MB one.
• npx prettier --check todesktop.json passes (matches this repo's format:check), and the file is valid JSON per the @todesktop/cli schema (no validation errors in the dry run).

Caveat: I could not run a full pnpm install / pnpm run build in this sandbox — pnpm install --frozen-lockfile fails fetching an unrelated transitive dependency (@electron/rebuild's @electron/node-gyp git tarball) that this sandbox's egress policy blocks, unrelated to this change. I was not able to get a real end-to-end todesktop build --dry-run number including the actual compiled out/ directory, or re-run CI on this branch. The before/after appFiles-only comparison above (27 MB → 4.32 MB) is real and reproducible, but the final total including out/ is an estimate, not a measured number.