[Qgis-psc] Blacksmith runners / macOS builds

[Alessandro Pasotti]

 Hello Matthias,

This looks a very good idea to me.

Thank you for exploring this opportunity!


---
Alessandro Pasotti
QCooperative:  www.qcooperative.net
ItOpen:   www.itopen.it

Il ven 9 ott 2026, 07:07 Matthias Kuhn via QGIS-PSC <
qgis-psc at lists.osgeo.org> ha scritto:

> 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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