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Niobium
You are viewing the documentation of the unreleased main branch. It can describe changes that are not in any release yet.

Status and platforms

Niobium 0.1 is a vertical slice that proves the model; it is not production-ready. This page is the site’s single statement of what has been verified. Other pages link here instead of repeating it.

Statuses use five values only:

Status Meaning
PASS Verified by an automated test or build gate, with recorded evidence
FAIL Verified and failing
BLOCKED Cannot run yet; the reason is recorded
NOT_RUN Can run, has not been run
DEFERRED Deliberately out of scope for this version

The source of truth is the repository’s acceptance plan and development roadmap; if this page and those disagree, they are right. What is planned next, in plain terms, is on the Roadmap.

Where it was verified

Section titled “Where it was verified”

All PASS entries come from zig build verify on a macOS arm64 host; the end-to-end suite also passes in a Debian bookworm arm64 container. Nothing has been verified yet on a real Windows machine or a full Linux desktop.

Build targets are x86_64-windows, aarch64-macos and x86_64-linux, plus aarch64-linux for VM tests; their support tiers and reference operating systems are on Platform support. All of them cross-compile and pass the binary checks, and the three shipping targets keep setup under 30 MiB (N1-AC-15 to N1-AC-17: PASS). Compiling for a platform is not the same as having verified it there.

User journeys

Section titled “User journeys”
ID Journey Status
N1-UJ-01 User-scope online install from an HTTP repository; App Bootstrap is invoked PASS
N1-UJ-02 Administrator silent install, install --silent --json --scope machine BLOCKED
N1-UJ-03 Update to a higher release_sequence PASS
N1-UJ-04 Incident rollback: a higher sequence ships an older application version PASS
N1-UJ-05 Repair restores deleted or tampered files PASS
N1-UJ-06 Uninstall leaves the install root and integrations clean PASS
N1-UJ-07 Install from an offline bundle PASS
N1-UJ-08 Portable Run: authorization, cache, execution, cleanup PASS
N1-UJ-09 A C program completes check, resolve, fetch, stage and commit through the C ABI PASS
N1-UJ-10 The five installer window screens complete an install on macOS (manual walkthrough) NOT_RUN

N1-UJ-02 is blocked for the same reason as the real-OS smoke tests below, and additionally because the smoke tool runs user scope only so far.

Guarantees

Section titled “Guarantees”
ID Guarantee Status
N1-INV-01 After recovery from any kill point, the active version is the old or the new one PASS
N1-INV-02 Unpacking an artifact cannot write outside the staging directory PASS
N1-INV-03 Forbidden manifest and component fields are rejected PASS
N1-INV-04 The elevated helper accepts only its closed operations, inside the managed root PASS
N1-INV-05 TUF rejects expired, rolled-back, forged, under-threshold and mismatched metadata PASS
N1-INV-06 release_sequence strictly increases; the application version may go down PASS
N1-INV-07 The window and the command line run the same engine and plan PASS
N1-INV-08 Unknown schema versions and too-old installers fail closed PASS

These run on the build host against a test platform with injected faults and against the host’s real file system. They are not evidence for platforms that have not been run (below).

Platforms

Section titled “Platforms”
Item Status
Real-OS smoke test, Windows 11 (N1-AC-18) BLOCKED
Real-OS smoke test, Ubuntu 24.04 arm64 (N1-AC-19) BLOCKED
Authenticode and Apple Developer ID signing and notarization DEFERRED
Native Wayland window backend (Linux uses X11) DEFERRED
Screen-reader bridges (UI Automation, NSAccessibility, AT-SPI) DEFERRED
Native folder picker on Linux DEFERRED

The real-OS smoke tests are blocked because the test virtual machines were not running when the suite last ran. What each platform is committed to, and which test lanes are still missing, is on Platform support.

Deferred features

Section titled “Deferred features”
Item Status
Embedded updates for Electron hosts (distribution.node) DEFERRED
Protocol handlers, autostart entries and environment variables as capabilities DEFERRED

Gaps without an acceptance entry

Section titled “Gaps without an acceptance entry”
  • nbpack cannot rotate root or online keys yet; clients already verify rotated roots (Sign and manage keys).
  • There is no published security policy or private reporting channel (Security).
  • The build API carries no compatibility promise in 0.1: pin a commit. The setup exit codes and JSON event schema are declared a compatibility contract (exit codes), and the C ABI changes only by appending to its versioned function table.