Makepad super-app + depth-1 `work` checkout — repo check (2026-09-25)

Checked makepad/makepad @ branch work (verified by doing a real --depth 1 clone of work: 423 MB / 8,238 files, HEAD 5f99533 "Merge branch 'wm-fixes' into work").

Short answer

Yes on both counts, but they are two different crates.

The super-app is apps/wm (makepad-wm) and its two siblings apps/wm-all (makepad-wm-all, iOS/in-process) and apps/wm-dyn (makepad-wm-dyn, Android, apps compiled on the phone).
The depth-1 shallow clone of work is not inside the super-app. It lives in the installer/bootstrap: tools/makepad_builder (crate makepad-loader, bins makepad-builder / makepad-builder-cli).

The super-app

Crate	What it is
`apps/wm` → `makepad-wm`	The desk / window manager. Nested mode: wm owns one OS window, hosts every app in the checkout as child processes over the studio protocol. Library for the other two.
`apps/wm-all` → `makepad-wm-all`	iOS + web build: same desk, every app linked in as a MODULE (`libs/app_module`), one splash isolate each, drawn into the desk's own texture.
`apps/wm-dyn` + `apps/wm-dyn/engine`	Android super-app: apps are not linked in. Opening a tile runs `cargo rustc --crate-type dylib` against the packaged checkout and `dlopen`s it into `ModuleHost`. Whole graph built with `RUSTFLAGS="-C prefer-dynamic"` so the engine is one shared dylib. Packed by `cargo makepad android dyn-pack`.

wm itself never clones anything. It finds a checkout by MAKEPAD_WM_ROOT, else the checkout above the running exe (target/<profile>/wm), else the checkout at/above cwd — apps/wm/src/clients.rs:341-362.

On Android the tree is not cloned at all: it ships inside the APK. tools/cargo_makepad/src/android/dyn_pack/stage.rs stages a relocatable tree (git-tracked + untracked-not-ignored files of every reachable package, registry crates vendored and re-pointed as [patch.crates-io] PATH packages, mtimes normalised), and libs/ondevice_build::provision (libs/ondevice_build/src/lib.rs:139) unpacks toolchain + checkout + cross-built target/ into the app's files dir on first tile open (apps/wm/src/dylib_host.rs:458-460), with a stamp for once-per-pack runs.

The depth-1 `work` clone

tools/makepad_builder/src/gitclone.rs:11 — clone_depth1(url, dest, branch):

info/refs → resolve HEAD/branch
upload-pack with depth Some(1) (prints git upload-pack depth=1, line 52)
apply_pack_and_checkout → write files + index
clones into a temp sibling .{name}.clone-tmp, then renames into place; refuses to overwrite an existing directory that is not a complete checkout

Defaults (tools/makepad_builder/src/lib.rs:45-46):

git_url: "https://github.com/makepad/makepad".to_string(),
branch: Some("work".to_string()),

Progress line lib.rs:222 — clone {} (depth 1, work); call at lib.rs:225 (--skip-git reuses an existing checkout, --branch NAME overrides). The CLI (makepad-builder-cli) accepts --root/--git/--branch/-p [--skip-git|--skip-build|--skip-cuda].

Underneath it uses the repo's own pure-Rust git stack libs/git:

libs/git/src/http_sync.rs:327-369 — deepen <n> negotiation, shallow capability check, shallow-boundary aware walks
libs/git/src/clone.rs:100 — local_clone_depth1 (local depth-1 clone via git alternates, parallel blob checkout)
libs/git/src/http_checkout.rs — bounded parallel checkout writers

Distribution/identity layer: libs/loader_bundle — a makepad-builder.json bootstrap (email + app name) that gets streamed into a personalised ZIP ("Makepad Loader"), used by makepad-loader/makepad-builder.

What is not there yet (vs. the rikarends chat plan)

No login / entitlement / commercial-app gating. Grep for license|entitlement|signin|account|commercial|paid|purchase across apps/wm, libs/workspace, libs/app_module, libs/wm_api, libs/ondevice_build → nothing (only demo invoice text in apps/wm/src/demo_home.rs:73). "Run the makepad app, log in, get access to commercial apps" is not implemented.
No crates.io publishing of the super-app. makepad-wm is a path-only workspace member; every crates.io mention in the tree is a dependency reference. The in-tree distribution path is makepad-builder (depth-1 git + toolchain provisioning) plus the Android dyn-pack.
wm does not fetch more apps over the network at runtime. Extra apps must already be in its checkout; the optional private ones (apps/scope, apps/sandbox, apps/source-library, apps/stage, libs/terminal_core, libs/ai, …) are workspace.exclude entries and are hand-cloned. So the "super app does the rest using a shallow git checkout" idea is currently the builder's job, done once at install time, not a runtime feature of the app.
No cargo install makepad-style entry point; the two entry points are makepad-builder / makepad-builder-cli and cargo makepad (tools/cargo_makepad).

Key files

apps/wm/src/clients.rs:341      checkout root resolution (MAKEPAD_WM_ROOT / exe / cwd)
apps/wm/src/dylib_host.rs:1     Android super-app on-device dylib host + provisioning
apps/wm/src/apps.rs:58          super-app lists packaged crates before the checkout exists
apps/wm-dyn/Cargo.toml:1        Android super-app header comment (design + pack command)
tools/makepad_builder/src/gitclone.rs:11   clone_depth1()
tools/makepad_builder/src/lib.rs:45        default url + branch "work"
libs/git/src/http_sync.rs:327             depth/deepen negotiation
libs/git/src/clone.rs:100                 local_clone_depth1
libs/ondevice_build/src/lib.rs:139        provision() (APK assets → files dir)
tools/cargo_makepad/src/android/dyn_pack/stage.rs:1  relocatable staged checkout
libs/loader_bundle/src/lib.rs             makepad-builder.json bootstrap + ZIP personalisation

5.9 KiB Raw Permalink Blame History

Makepad super-app + depth-1 work checkout — repo check (2026-09-25)