The NSP script's --platform mac-app (Spyder: PLATFORM = 'mac-app') does everything --platform mac builds (the Mac shaders, the Mac host for the profile, the button-icon font), then packs <NSP folder>/<game name>.app (-o / OUT_IPA names another path; ':' and '/' in the game name become ' - '), which boots the game when opened from Finder, from any folder, without the build folder. New dm/mac/pack_app.py packs it: the launcher dm/mac/launcher.c (compiled for arm64 at the host's deployment target) as CFBundleExecutable, the host beside it in Contents/MacOS, and in Contents/Resources what the IPA carries (build_ipa.sh's choice): romfs/, msl/<b-chain | vk | gl>/ (the Mac libraries only, not the cas/ compile cache, which the host never reads), aoc/<index>/, and dm/ with the rewritten modules and the rewriter tables the host reads (*.patched.bin, fixups, gates, cuts, obs, nro.tsv; not sites.tsv), the profile's shader_map.tsv, pso_manifest.tsv, c1_full.tsv and cb_extent.tsv when present, font/ and the --env-file as env.txt; AppIcon.icns from the game icon (sips, iconutil); Info.plist with the NACP name and display version, the IPA's bundle ID and the profile's app_category, plus DMTitleID, DMRomfsMarker and DMLanguage for the launcher. The large folders are APFS clones (cp -c) when a clonefile into the app works (the same APFS volume), plain copies otherwise after a free space check. The app is written as <app>.partial and swapped in whole.
The launcher sets the host's environment from the bundle (as the iOS app's main.m does) and runs the host as a child with posix_spawn, never exec: macOS privacy (TCC) attributes a child's file access to the app, while a launcher that hands its process over (a shell script exec'ing dmhost) got EPERM on every open on the external drive, silently, signed or not (found on Echoes of Wisdom's hand-made wrapper). Save and temporary files go to ~/Library/Application Support/nxnative/<title ID>/ (save/, temp/; pso_user.tsv lands beside save/, which is also DM_ROOT and the working folder), the host's output to ~/Library/Logs/nxnative/<title ID>.log (the previous one kept as .prev.log). Environment switches: <Application Support folder>/env.txt, then the bundle's dm/env.txt; neither replaces a variable already set. It forwards SIGTERM, SIGINT and SIGHUP to the host, returns its exit code (128 + the signal when it was killed), and shows an alert (osascript) when the bundle's game data is missing.
Signing: the inner host first, then the bundle, codesign --force --sign <identity>, ad-hoc by default, --mac-sign / MAC_SIGN names an identity; never with the hardened runtime (it refuses the executable memory the host maps for the game's code), so the app cannot be notarized. Finder information on copied files, which codesign refuses, is removed and the signing tried again.
In the script, mac_run is split: mac_host builds the host and the font (the stage "Mac host", for both platforms), mac_run makes the command of --platform mac as before, and mac_app runs pack_app.py (the stage "Mac app", its steps from pack_app.py's step lines); --platform mac-app plans the same number of stages as an IPA build.
New test dm/tools/tests/test_nsp_mac_app.py (written first; on main it fails: no dm/mac/pack_app.py, no --platform mac-app): packs an app from stand-ins with a stand-in host compiled there, and checks the layout, Info.plist, the ad-hoc signature without the runtime flag, the launcher's environment, working folder and log rotation, both env files, the exit code, SIGTERM forwarding, the alert (a stand-in osascript), plain copies, and the script's options and pack_app.py command line for an NVN and a Vulkan game. Checked: every test of dm/tools/tests, dm/ios/tests and dm/gfx/tests, make -C dm/host/tests GAME=010015100B514000 run and dm/ios/tools/compile_check.py pass. Not checked here: an app of a real game (next), a GL game, an app moved to another Mac.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
