QSO Graph SDK (QGSDK)

The build kit for QSO Graph's applications: the tools it takes to compile and package them, installed with one command, at pinned versions. Part of the qso-graph family of amateur-radio tools; sister to JTSDK (WSJT-X) and FLSDK (fldigi).

Choose what you work on, and get exactly its tools. Each kind of work is a profile:

Profile	For	Installs
desktop	QSO Graph Desktop, the Electron hub	Node.js, Rust, and Go and CMake for its FIPS crypto module; on Windows also Ninja, NASM, libclang, Perl and git
logger	QSO Graph Logger, the Qt application	Qt, its compiler, CMake, Ninja; NSIS on Windows for the installer
mcp	qso-graph's MCP servers	uv, and the Pythons the servers test against (3.11 to 3.13); git on Windows

Install one or several; run the installer again with another profile to add it.

Why it exists. A program nobody else can build is a program nobody else can keep alive. QGSDK writes down, as code, everything it takes to build an application, so a new maintainer starts from one command instead of from someone's memory.

QGSDK is the tooling; an application is compiled and packaged from its own checkout, with these tools.

What each profile installs

	Version	Windows	Linux	macOS	For
logger
Qt	6.12.0	MinGW build	GCC build	universal build (Apple silicon and Intel)	the framework the logger is written in
Compiler		MinGW 13.1.0, Qt's own, matched to Qt's libraries	the system's GCC	Apple's clang (Xcode command-line tools)
CMake	3.30.5	✓	✓	✓	configures and builds; CPack makes the packages
Ninja	1.12.1	✓	✓	✓	runs the build
NSIS	3.13	✓			the Windows installer
desktop
Node.js	26.9.0	✓	✓	✓	the application, and its build
Rust	1.99.1	✓	✓	✓	the credential core; installed with rustup, inside the prefix
Go	1.27.3	✓	✓	✓	building AWS-LC's FIPS module
CMake	4.4.4	✓	✓	✓	building AWS-LC's FIPS module
Ninja, NASM	1.13.2, 3.02	✓			building AWS-LC's FIPS module on Windows
libclang	23.1.4	✓			bindgen, which the FIPS module needs on Windows (only libclang and its headers are unpacked)
Perl	5.42.3.1	✓			the FIPS module's build on Windows (Strawberry Perl's portable build; only perl\ is unpacked)
C/C++ compiler		Microsoft's C++ Build Tools (needs an administrator)	the system's GCC	Apple's clang (Xcode command-line tools)
git		MinGit 2.56.0	the system's	the Xcode command-line tools'
mcp
uv	0.13.6	✓	✓	✓	the servers' environments, tests and builds
Python	3.11 to 3.13	✓	✓	✓	installed by uv, inside the prefix
git		MinGit 2.56.0	the system's	the Xcode command-line tools'
every profile
Python	3.14.10	✓	✓	✓	QGSDK's own scripts only; never part of an application

What QGSDK can't install without root or admin rights comes from the system, and the installer checks for it first: on Windows Microsoft's C++ Build Tools (desktop); on Linux a C++ compiler and the libraries Qt uses (logger), a C/C++ compiler, make, unzip and libatomic (desktop), and git (desktop, mcp); on macOS Apple's Xcode command-line tools (every profile). It names what's missing, with the one command that installs it. Linux arm64 (a Raspberry Pi 5) has the desktop and mcp profiles; Qt's Linux build, and so the logger, is x86-64 only.

Every version is pinned, and every download checked, in manifest.json: the one place to change them.

Developer setup (Windows)

You need nothing installed first: no Python, no git, no Visual Studio, no Qt account, no admin rights. The one exception is the desktop profile: Rust on Windows links with Microsoft's C++ Build Tools, which only Microsoft's installer can install, as an administrator. The installer checks and, if they're missing, prints the one command:

winget install Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.BuildTools --override "--quiet --wait --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools --includeRecommended"

1. Get QGSDK: download the latest release's .zip from Releases, check it (Verify your download) and unpack it; or clone this repository.

2. Install the tools for your profiles (once; the logger is about 2 GB and a few minutes):

   powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File bootstrap\install.ps1 -Profiles desktop,mcp

   Leave out -Profiles and it asks. Everything goes into .\prefix beside this checkout. Running it again installs only what's missing or changed. Removing QGSDK is deleting the folder.

3. Load the tools into your shell, whenever you open a new one:

   . .\prefix\qgsdk-env.ps1        # PowerShell
   prefix\qgsdk-env.cmd            # cmd

4. Work in the application's checkout: QSO Graph Desktop with npm (its README); the logger with CMake; an MCP server with uv. Keep QSO Graph Desktop's checkout near the top of a drive (C:\src\qso-graph-desktop, say): Microsoft's compiler can't open a path longer than 260 characters, and the credential core's build folders nest deep.

qgsdk doctor shows what's installed and where; qgsdk profiles lists the profiles. qgsdk build --source <logger checkout> is a shortcut for the logger's configure-and-build step; you never need it.

Developer setup (Linux)

Tested on Rocky Linux 9, Debian 12 and Ubuntu 24.04; any x86-64 distribution of that age or newer should work.

1. Install what your profiles need from your distribution (the one step that needs root). For every profile:

   # Fedora / RHEL / Rocky / Alma
   sudo dnf install gcc-c++ mesa-libGL-devel mesa-libEGL-devel libxkbcommon-devel tar dbus-libs fontconfig freetype libbrotli glib2 libwayland-cursor libxkbcommon-x11 xcb-util xcb-util-cursor xcb-util-image xcb-util-keysyms xcb-util-renderutil xcb-util-wm git gcc make unzip libatomic
   # Debian / Ubuntu
   sudo apt install g++ libgl-dev libegl-dev libxkbcommon-dev curl tar libdbus-1-3 libfontconfig1 libfreetype6 libglib2.0-0 libwayland-cursor0 libxkbcommon-x11-0 libxcb-cursor0 libxcb-icccm4 libxcb-image0 libxcb-keysyms1 libxcb-render-util0 libxcb-render0 libxcb-shape0 libxcb-util1 libxcb-xkb1 git build-essential unzip libatomic1

   The desktop profile alone needs a C/C++ compiler, make, git, unzip and libatomic (build-essential git unzip libatomic1 on Debian); the mcp profile alone needs only git, curl and tar. The installer checks for everything its profiles need and prints the line for you if anything is missing.

2. Get QGSDK: download the latest release's .tar.gz from Releases, check it (Verify your download) and unpack it; or clone this repository.

3. Install the tools for your profiles (once; the logger is about 2 GB, under a minute on a fast line). No root:

   bootstrap/install.sh --profile desktop --profile mcp

4. Load the tools into your shell, whenever you open a new one:

   . ./prefix/qgsdk-env.sh

5. Work in the application's checkout, as on Windows.

Developer setup (macOS)

macOS 14 or newer, Apple silicon or Intel.

1. Install Apple's Xcode command-line tools, if you haven't (the one step that needs an administrator):

   xcode-select --install

2. Get QGSDK: download the latest release's .tar.gz from Releases, check it (Verify your download) and unpack it; or clone this repository.

3. Install the tools for your profiles (once). No root:

   bootstrap/install.sh --profile desktop --profile mcp

   Leave out --profile and it asks. Everything goes into ./prefix; running it again installs only what's missing or changed.

4. Load the tools into your shell, whenever you open a new one:

   . ./prefix/qgsdk-env.sh

5. Work in the application's checkout, as on Windows.

Verify your download

Each release carries SHA256SUMS, and GitHub's signed record that this repository's Release workflow made every file. In the folder you downloaded to:

(Get-FileHash qgsdk-0.1.0.zip -Algorithm SHA256).Hash    # Windows: compare with SHA256SUMS

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missing                 # Linux
shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missing             # macOS

With the GitHub CLI, on any platform, this checks who made it:

gh attestation verify qgsdk-0.1.0.zip -R qso-graph/qso-graph-sdk

Checking it works

On a clean machine (a fresh VM or container is best):

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tests\windows-check.ps1     # Windows

tests/check.sh                                                        # Linux and macOS

Each installs QGSDK from nothing with every profile (or those named with -Profiles / --profile). For the logger it builds a small Qt program, builds it again with plain CMake, and runs both (on Windows it also checks NSIS runs); for mcp it runs each of the servers' Pythons through uv, and git, and checks they are the prefix's; for desktop it clones QSO Graph Desktop, checks the Node.js and Rust it pins are the ones installed, and runs its setup, build and fast check. It ends with == PASS or == FAIL: <what>. CI runs them on Windows, Linux (x86-64 and arm64) and both kinds of Mac whenever the installer changes, and weekly, so a moved download, or a QSO Graph Desktop pin QGSDK doesn't match, is found within a week.

What it downloads, and their licences

None of these is part of this repository; each is downloaded from its publisher and used under its own licence.

Tool	Profile	Licence
Python (python.org's Windows build; python-build-standalone on Linux and macOS)	every profile	PSF-2.0
aqtinstall, and its Python dependencies	every profile	MIT (each dependency its own)
Qt	logger	LGPL-3.0-only (open-source edition)
MinGW-w64 and GCC (Windows)	logger	GPL-3.0 with the GCC Runtime Library Exception; MinGW-w64's runtime ZPL-2.1
CMake	logger	BSD-3-Clause
Ninja	logger	Apache-2.0
NSIS (Windows)	logger	zlib/libpng, with parts under bzip2 and CPL-1.0
uv	mcp	MIT OR Apache-2.0
MinGit, from Git for Windows (Windows)	desktop, mcp	GPL-2.0-only
Node.js	desktop	MIT
Rust, and rustup	desktop	MIT OR Apache-2.0
Go	desktop	BSD-3-Clause
CMake (Kitware's build)	desktop	BSD-3-Clause
Ninja (Windows)	desktop	Apache-2.0
NASM (Windows)	desktop	BSD-2-Clause
libclang, from LLVM (Windows)	desktop	Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception
Perl, from Strawberry Perl (Windows)	desktop	Artistic-1.0-Perl OR GPL-1.0-or-later

Learn more

• docs/: how QGSDK works, and the decisions behind it (MinGW, aqtinstall, CMake presets, profiles)
• CONTRIBUTING.md: how to propose a change
• Licence: GPL-3.0-or-later (LICENSE, NOTICE), like JTSDK and FLSDK