feat: native package manager distribution — WinGet (Windows) and apt/deb (Linux)

[malon64]

Summary

Extend floe distribution to two additional native package managers, following the same pattern as the Homebrew tap (macOS/Linux) and Scoop bucket (Windows) already in place:

• WinGet — Windows Package Manager, pre-installed on Windows 10/11
• apt / deb — Debian/Ubuntu package, the dominant Linux system package manager

Both follow the same process: generate a versioned manifest/package from the GitHub Release binary artifact and submit/push it on each release.

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WinGet (Windows)

How it works

WinGet packages live in the microsoft/winget-pkgs public repository. Each package is a set of YAML manifests under manifests/m/malon64/floe/. Submissions are pull requests reviewed by the WinGet team (typically auto-merged within hours via bot).

Manifest structure

manifests/m/malon64/floe/X.Y.Z/
  malon64.floe.yaml                 # version manifest
  malon64.floe.installer.yaml       # installer manifest (points to .zip)
  malon64.floe.locale.en-US.yaml    # locale manifest

Automation options

• wingetcreate: CLI tool that generates and submits manifests automatically. Can be added as a release workflow step.
• Manual: Use wingetcreate update locally after each release and open the PR by hand.

Recommended: automate via wingetcreate in release.yml, same pattern as the Scoop step.

Source artifact

floe-vX.Y.Z-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip — already published to GitHub Releases.

End-user experience

winget install malon64.floe
winget upgrade malon64.floe

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apt / deb (Linux)

How it works

There is no single centralised apt registry like crates.io. The standard approach for a project of this size is a self-hosted apt repository published to GitHub Pages (or similar static hosting), following the pattern used by tools like gh, netlify, sentry-cli, etc.

Recommended approach

1. On each release, build a .deb package from the x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu binary using cargo-deb or a hand-crafted dpkg-deb invocation.
2. Sign the package with a GPG key.
3. Publish the signed .deb and the apt repository metadata (Packages, Release, InRelease) to a static host (GitHub Pages on malon64/apt-floe, or an existing Pages repo).
4. Users add the repo once and get upgrades via apt upgrade.

End-user experience

curl -fsSL https://malon64.github.io/apt-floe/gpg.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/floe.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/floe.gpg] https://malon64.github.io/apt-floe stable main" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/floe.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install floe

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Implementation checklist

WinGet

• Add wingetcreate step to release.yml that opens a PR against microsoft/winget-pkgs on each tag
• Add WINGET_TOKEN secret (PAT with public_repo scope, needed by wingetcreate)
• Update docs/installation.md with winget install instructions

apt / deb

• Create malon64/apt-floe repo with GitHub Pages enabled
• Add cargo-deb configuration to floe-cli/Cargo.toml
• Generate and sign .deb in release.yml after the Linux build step
• Publish updated apt repo index to malon64/apt-floe Pages on each release
• Add APT_REPO_TOKEN and APT_GPG_KEY secrets
• Update docs/installation.md with apt install instructions