0041 — CMake and native release bundles

• Status: Accepted
• Date: 2026-09-03
• Deciders: Friedrich Schrödter
• Supersedes: —

Context

C and C++ consumers need one target name regardless of whether Axiolid is built from an immutable source revision or consumed as a release archive. Cargo outputs alone do not carry CMake usage requirements, runtime-library placement, target provenance, or integrity metadata.

Decision

Expose Axiolid::axiolid from both paths. Source consumption goes through axiolid_fetch(...), which accepts only a full 40-character Git commit. Binary archives contain both shared and static libraries, the generated header, package config files, the MPL-2.0 license, and a hash-bearing manifest. Archives and their sidecars are reproducible and SHA-256 verified before release upload.

AXIOLID_LINKAGE=SHARED|STATIC selects the implementation behind the stable target. Shared is the default because it minimizes platform-specific transitive system-link requirements. ABI compatibility is the C ABI v0.4 contract, not the Rust crate ABI.

Consequences

• Mutable branches and tags are rejected by the source helper.
• Release support is a closed target matrix; unknown target triples fail packaging.
• Cross-built AArch64 Linux archives are format- and architecture-verified but not executed on the x86 runner.
• Adding a target requires packager layout support, binary-format verification, CMake metadata, CI evidence, and documentation.

Rejected alternatives

• Expose raw Cargo artifact paths: no package discovery, provenance, or stable usage requirements.
• Download “latest” source: not reproducible and vulnerable to ref movement.
• Ship only shared or only static: prevents downstreams with deployment constraints from choosing explicitly.