dotSYSTEMX 1.8.8-alpha.1

dotSYSTEMX 1.8.8-alpha.1

Public alpha — use at your own risk. Defaults and interfaces may change during this series. Review an exact release and keep recoverable backups before using it in a project. This release does not certify an adopting project for production.

This release makes opt-in startup update checks notice-only. With --auto on-start, SYSTEMX checks published release metadata at most once per 24 hours after a successful check and reports a newer version. Startup does not download its archive, select new defaults, change a version pin, or alter project-owned files. A pinned project can receive the notice while remaining pinned. Selecting a new version requires an explicit manual update; the exact remote codeload ZIP can be checked with an independently obtained --archive-sha256 before parsing.

Existing installations need care: ordinary updates preserve their root manager.py and launchers. An older preserved root manager may still select a release automatically when its existing on-start policy runs. Set that older installation to manual and use a reviewed external 1.8.8 tool to preview and explicitly apply a recognized stock bootstrap-refresh before re-enabling startup checks. Customized or unrecognized launchers require manual review. An offline invocation skips the startup network check.

Downloads: SYSTEMX-1.8.8-alpha.1.zip contains only the portable .SYSTEMX folder; dotsystemx-1.8.8a1-py3-none-any.whl provides the optional Python library and CLI. The attached SHA256SUMS identifies exact release-asset bytes; PUBLIC-REVIEW-1.8.8-alpha.1.json records local checks and their limits. The raw GitHub codeload tag ZIP used by remote --version install/update is a different archive from the attached folder ZIP. Its SHA-256 is:

a23662671bab125174a6fed47582720ac923cd0d35194972c6e963fd70dc8ca4

Obtain and verify that digest through a source you trust before using it as a pin. A hash does not authenticate the publisher by itself.

Local pre-publication evidence: the 143-file public template inventory and 87 Markdown documents passed validation. The reviewed source produced a folder ZIP and wheel whose 143 portable files were byte-identical to the source. An isolated wheel installation created a blank, pinned project, accepted the opt-in notice policy, and ran status offline. The full Python 3.9.6 and 3.14.5 test results, final artifact checksums, and a prepublication pinned install from the live tag are recorded in the attached evidence report. A deliberately wrong digest was rejected. The subsequent opt-in release check encountered a GitHub API rate limit and safely kept the installed defaults.

GitHub Actions remains disabled; no workflow is shipped. Native Windows and Linux installation behavior was not reverified for this patch. The startup notice depends on GitHub release metadata and is not an independent archive attestation. See the manual, installation and update guide, security guidance, and version notes.