[Qgis-psc] Blacksmith runners / macOS builds

[Matthias Kuhn]

Hi Martin,

Yes, running tests sounds reasonable too.
So far the build itself was taking too long and I didn't want to increase
this even more.

Matthias

On Thu, Oct 8, 2026, 22:45 Martin Dobias <wonder.sk at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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/>
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>
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