Updates and release channels

Stable versus development builds

Stable releases (marked Latest on the releases page) are the tested line. Pick these if you want fewer surprises.
Development builds are a rolling pre-release named dev build #N, rebuilt on every change. They have the newest fixes and the newest bugs. Pick these if you want to help test.

The dev-build checklist walks through testing a development build on a clean machine.

By default nowplaying notifies you when an update is available and changes nothing on its own.
You can turn updates off, or let them install automatically.
Every download is checked against its SHA-256 hash before installing. The install swaps in atomically and keeps the previous version for rollback.
nowplaying never downgrades itself and never crosses between stable and development channels.

Every Windows download ships with a SHA256SUMS file:

Get-FileHash .\nowplaying-0.1.0-windows-x64-setup.exe -Algorithm SHA256

Builds also carry GitHub build provenance, a signed record of which workflow and commit produced each file:

gh attestation verify nowplaying-0.1.0-windows-x64-setup.exe --repo rowkavdev/nowplaying

With the default notify policy, nowplaying tells you an update is ready; apply it from the prompt.
With install, updates verify their SHA-256 hash and swap in atomically. The previous version is kept alongside as a backup during the swap.
To move between stable and development builds, download the one you want from releases and install over the top. Check the hash the same way as a first install.

If a build misbehaves:

Quit nowplaying from the tray.
Download the previous version's installer or ZIP from releases and install it over the top. Your settings and sign-ins are kept.
Report what broke in an issue with the build number that failed and the one you went back to.

Settings migrate forward automatically, and the file is backed up before any format change, so going back a version is safe.