cross-platform-installer-validation

name	cross-platform-installer-validation
description	Validate Unix shell installers and npm postinstall flows honestly from a Windows host.
domain	validation
confidence	high
source	earned

Context

Use this when install or release validation must happen on Windows while the product's primary install paths target Unix shells or Linux/macOS npm environments.

Patterns

Normalize shell scripts first

• Check .sh files for CRLF before running them under WSL.
• Rewrite to LF if needed; otherwise sh can fail before any real installer logic executes.

Keep temp state inside the repo

• Set a repo-scoped TMPDIR when invoking shell installers from WSL.
• Avoid /tmp and use repo-local scratch directories so validation is reproducible and policy-compliant.

Use PATH-injected fakes for shell error branches

• For checksum or download failures, place a fake curl (or other dependency) earlier in PATH.
• This makes shell error-path validation deterministic without changing installer code.

Use Node harnesses for postinstall branches

• When the host platform is unsupported, run postinstall.js through a small harness that overrides process.platform / process.arch and mocks https.get.
• This is good for graceful-failure validation (ENOTFOUND, 404s) when a real supported-platform npm lifecycle is unavailable.

Separate environment blockers from product blockers

• Record host-only blockers (for example EBADPLATFORM on Windows or missing Node in WSL) separately from product blockers (missing release tags, package-name collisions).
• Leave tasks open if the true end-to-end path was not executed.