NextCore 1.3.0 — research preview

NextCore 1.3.0 ships the current EFI binaries, read-only installation utility, ISO and verified ZIP archives from consolidated main revision 9d7b787ce6c5b2cb70da2e072af74e5712c9f04f.

The host setup follows Computer → Prepare → Review, with shared GUI, TUI and CLI validation. Normal EFI uses the APFS/ConsoleControl path; the research runtime has a separate role. The boot path does not introduce a Linux guest.

Download nextcore-direct-efi.zip for the grouped EFI/utility/ISO files, or select the individual EFI and ISO assets. Check every download against SHA256SUMS; exact file and source identities are in release.json. LICENSES.txt includes complete reviewed project and dependency notices.

All 12 pull requests open during this integration were merged into their repositories' main branches, including the explicitly gated cold initial mapping diagnostic. No new feature branch was created for this release. The exact implementation source is private; public component repository revisions are not substituted for it.

This is a research prerelease. The installation utility is read-only. Interactive Recovery utilities, installed GUI operation, macOS 27 operation, Metal, physical installation and hardware qualification remain unverified for these new binaries. Earlier original-input macOS 26 launchd/WindowServer observations do not qualify this set. Apple media, SMC secrets and raw research evidence are excluded.

The three actual UEFI builds and archive/ISO verification are recorded with their hashes. Local setup and browser checks passed. GitHub-hosted source checks could not start under the repository account billing/spending restriction. A standalone historical NXTEST check has a separate wcslen link failure; the generic host workspace test failed before executing tests because of duplicate panic handlers. Neither is reported as a pass. See release.json for focused host test results and their limits.