fix(packaging): make the AppImage self-contained and restore the RPM libva requirement

Two defects found by inspecting the published v0.2.19 artifacts.

The AppImage contained the binary and the desktop file and nothing else.
The binary links FFmpeg, PipeWire, ALSA and XCB directly, so the image
only ran on a host that happened to carry the exact FFmpeg build the
binary was linked against, which is the opposite of what an AppImage is
for. The packaging step now bundles the shared library closure that ldd
resolves, points the binary at it with an RPATH of $ORIGIN/../lib, and
prepends it to LD_LIBRARY_PATH in AppRun. The C runtime is deliberately
left on the host, because bundling a different glibc than the rest of
the system expects produces failures that are very hard to trace. The
step fails if fewer than five libraries were collected or if the image
was not produced, so a silently empty image can never ship.

alien drops libva2 when it converts the Debian package to an RPM,
because it has no Debian to RPM name rule for it. libva is loaded at
runtime by the FFmpeg VAAPI device, so the requirement is now added back
explicitly with rpm --addrequires and the build fails if it is missing
from the finished package. Without it an RPM install would leave
hardware encoding unavailable until the user noticed and installed libva
by hand.

Version bumped to 0.2.20 across the manifest, lock file, RPM spec, AUR
PKGBUILD and the guide.

.github/workflows/release.yml

@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ jobs:
             libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev libswresample-dev libswscale-dev \
             libavfilter-dev libavdevice-dev \
             libpipewire-0.3-dev libgtk-3-dev libgtk-layer-shell-dev libxcb1-dev libasound2-dev \
-            rpm alien wget
+            rpm alien wget patchelf
 
       - name: Setup Rust toolchain
         uses: dtolnay/rust-toolchain@stable
@@ -78,10 +78,17 @@ jobs:
           DEB_FILE=$(ls dist/*.deb | head -n 1)
           alien --to-rpm --scripts "$DEB_FILE"
           mv *.rpm dist/
+          # alien resolves the Debian package names to sonames, but it drops
+          # libva2 because there is no matching Debian to RPM name rule.
+          # libva is loaded at runtime by the FFmpeg VAAPI device, so the
+          # requirement has to be added back explicitly.
+          rpm --addrequires "libva.so.2()(64bit)" dist/*.rpm
+          rpm -qp --requires dist/*.rpm | grep -q "libva.so.2" \
+            || { echo "::error::libva requirement missing from the RPM"; exit 1; }
 
       - name: Package Standalone AppImage
         run: |
-          mkdir -p AppDir/usr/bin AppDir/usr/share/applications AppDir/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps
+          mkdir -p AppDir/usr/bin AppDir/usr/lib AppDir/usr/share/applications AppDir/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps
           cp target/release/scythe AppDir/usr/bin/
           ln -sf scythe AppDir/usr/bin/scythe-ui
           ln -sf scythe AppDir/usr/bin/scythe-daemon
@@ -89,10 +96,34 @@ jobs:
           ln -sf scythe AppDir/usr/bin/vrec-daemon
           ln -sf scythe AppDir/usr/bin/vrec
           cp packaging/scythe.desktop AppDir/usr/share/applications/
-          
+
+          # Bundle the shared library closure. Without this the image only
+          # runs on a host that happens to carry the exact FFmpeg build the
+          # binary was linked against, which defeats the point of an
+          # AppImage. ldd already resolves the full transitive closure.
+          ldd target/release/scythe | awk '/=>/ {print $3}' | sort -u | while read -r lib; do
+            [ -e "$lib" ] || continue
+            base=$(basename "$lib")
+            # The C runtime stays on the host: bundling a different glibc
+            # than the kernel and the other system libraries expect breaks
+            # the image in ways that are hard to diagnose.
+            case "$base" in
+              libc.so.6|libm.so.6|libgcc_s.so.1|ld-linux*.so.2|libpthread.so.0|libdl.so.2|librt.so.1) continue ;;
+            esac
+            cp -L "$lib" "AppDir/usr/lib/$base"
+          done
+          lib_count=$(ls -1 AppDir/usr/lib | wc -l)
+          echo "bundled libraries: ${lib_count}"
+          ls -1 AppDir/usr/lib
+
+          # Prefer the bundled copies over anything the host provides.
+          patchelf --set-rpath '$ORIGIN/../lib' AppDir/usr/bin/scythe
+          patchelf --print-rpath AppDir/usr/bin/scythe
+
           cat > AppDir/AppRun << 'EOF'
           #!/bin/sh
           HERE="$(dirname "$(readlink -f "${0}")")"
+          export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="${HERE}/usr/lib${LD_LIBRARY_PATH:+:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH}"
           exec "${HERE}/usr/bin/scythe" "$@"
           EOF
           chmod +x AppDir/AppRun
@@ -105,6 +136,18 @@ jobs:
           chmod +x appimagetool
           ./appimagetool --appimage-extract-and-run AppDir dist/scythe-x86_64.AppImage || true
 
+          # The image is only useful if the libraries actually made it in.
+          lib_count=$(ls -1 AppDir/usr/lib | wc -l)
+          echo "bundled libraries: ${lib_count}"
+          if [ "${lib_count}" -lt 5 ]; then
+            echo "::error::AppImage bundled only ${lib_count} libraries, expected the FFmpeg closure"
+            exit 1
+          fi
+          if [ ! -f dist/scythe-x86_64.AppImage ]; then
+            echo "::error::AppImage was not produced"
+            exit 1
+          fi
+
       - name: Upload Linux Artifacts
         uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
         with:

Cargo.lock

@@ -3242,7 +3242,7 @@ dependencies = [
 
 [[package]]
 name = "scythe"
-version = "0.2.19"
+version = "0.2.20"
 dependencies = [
  "ashpd",
  "cpal",

Cargo.toml

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [package]
 name = "scythe"
-version = "0.2.19"
+version = "0.2.20"
 edition = "2024"
 
 [[bin]]

PROJECT_GUIDE.md

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ This document is the definitive technical reference for developers and AI agents
 
 ## 1. Project Overview & Current Status
 
-**Current Version:** `v0.2.19`  
+**Current Version:** `v0.2.20`  
 **License:** Dual MIT / Apache 2.0  
 
 ### Repository Topology

packaging/aur/PKGBUILD

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # Maintainer: oiupoyt
 pkgname=scythe-git
-pkgver=0.2.19
+pkgver=0.2.20
 pkgrel=1
 pkgdesc="High-performance GPU hardware screen recorder and instant replay overlay for Wayland and X11"
 arch=('x86_64')
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ sha256sums=('SKIP')
 
 pkgver() {
     cd "$srcdir/scythe"
-    git describe --long --tags 2>/dev/null | sed 's/^v//;s/\([^-]*-g\)/r\1/;s/-/./g' || echo "0.2.19"
+    git describe --long --tags 2>/dev/null | sed 's/^v//;s/\([^-]*-g\)/r\1/;s/-/./g' || echo "0.2.20"
 }
 
 build() {

packaging/rpm/scythe.spec

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 Name:           scythe
-Version:        0.2.19
+Version:        0.2.20
 Release:        1%{?dist}
 Summary:        High-performance GPU hardware screen recorder and instant replay overlay
 
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ ln -sf %{_datadir}/applications/scythe.desktop %{buildroot}%{_datadir}/applicati
 %{_datadir}/applications/vrec.desktop
 
 %changelog
-* Tue Oct 21 2026 oiupoyt - 0.2.19-1
+* Tue Oct 21 2026 oiupoyt - 0.2.20-1
 - Unified multicall binary: install scythe with the scythe-daemon, scythe-ui
   and vrec-* compatibility symlinks
 - Dropped the GTK 3 and GTK layer shell requirements, the GTK backend was