[Qgis-psc] Blacksmith runners / macOS builds

[Martin Dobias]

Hi Matthias

That all sounds good to me. And maybe we could also start to run auto tests
for mac plarform in CI? It seems quite a few are broken on macOS, but we
don't really know about that :-)

Cheers
Martin


On Thu, Oct 8, 2026 at 1:59 PM Matthias Kuhn via QGIS-PSC <
qgis-psc at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> Dear PSC,
>
> We are currently producing macOS builds entirely within our CI/CD
> pipelines (github workflows/actions). With this approach, we can create dmg
> installer packages for currently supported QGIS 3 and QGIS 4 versions for
> releases, pull requests, and branch (latest) builds.
>
> For QGIS 4, one important component is currently missing: we cannot build
> QtWebEngine (HTML rendering) because building it takes over six hours (the
> maximum threshold for workflows) on the (free-tier) github runners. This
> limitation is significant, and several tickets request its addition (for
> QGIS itself and for plugins like dataplotly). We only need to rebuild this
> component when there's an update, so it won't add time to every pipeline
> build. However, we must ensure it builds once every few days.
>
> I recently was in touch with blacksmith <https://www.blacksmith.sh/> which
> is an independent provider of runners for github actions. They have very
> performant runners, I was able to build QtWebEngine in less than 1.5 hours
> (compared to more than 6 hours on github). They would allow us to use their
> infrastructure as part of their open-source engagement and ask for a blog
> post in return.
>
> Blacksmith would also help us reduce CI time for other workflows either by
> moving some workflows over to blacksmith or by reducing the load on github
> actions cache. This would significantly improve the developer experience.
>
> One remaining challenge will be providing mac packages for Intel devices.
> Blacksmith does not offer this platform. Apple stopped selling Intel macOS
> devices in mid-2023. Apple will officially support Intel devices until
> 2028, after which support will be reduced, ending entirely in 2030.
> Offering QGIS 4 support for Intel devices would be nice, but we would need
> to find another interim solution for the next 2-4 years.
>
> I'd like to propose that we create an account with blacksmith, install its
> github app and move the macOS arm64 workflow and potentially a few others
> over to blacksmith. If this goes well and improves the situation, I'd like
> to write a blog post about our experiences as part of this agreement. This
> will improve the situation for macOS packages for arm64 (i.e. for all mac
> devices sold in the last 3 years and more sold since 2020). For Intel, we
> would continue to build packages but without QtWebEngine until we find a
> suitable solution.
>
> Thanks a lot and best regards
> Matthias
>
> --
> <https://conference.qgis.org>
>
>
> *Matthias Kuhn* - Mr. Noproblemo
>
> CTO | Co-Founder
> [image: email]
> matthias at opengis.ch
>
> [image: www]
> opengis.ch
>
> [image: linkedin] <https://www.linkedin.com/company/opengisch/> [image:
> mastodon] <https://fosstodon.org/@opengisch> [image: github]
> <https://github.com/opengisch/>
> _______________________________________________
> QGIS-PSC mailing list
> QGIS-PSC at lists.osgeo.org
> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-psc
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-psc/attachments/20261008/6e1468ad/attachment-0001.htm>