[tysonthomas9]

Browser Operator's fork now has a repeatable Chromium 158/159 build and signed macOS release path, including the bundled AI panel, native toolbar/branding fixes and isolated native auto-update qualification. The real 158 → 159 in-app and scheduled launchd background upgrades passed on ARM64, preserving the test bookmark and platform signatures.

Review guide: docs/chromium-change-review.md maps all changes across this PR, the private Omaha repository, and the CircleCI review branch. Native Chromium changes are version-specific patch series under patches/chromium/, because the native checkout's remote is Google's upstream.

Validation: full official/PGO builds, nested Developer ID signing, notarization/stapling, strict signatures/Gatekeeper, mounted DMG smoke tests, native CUP/CRX tamper/replay/wrong-key tests, actual 159 relaunch, bookmark preservation, and native toolbar open/close/reopen. The real cloud HTTPS Omaha scheduled update also PASSED: a 173996709-byte GitHub Releases download, native CUP/CRX verification, actual 159 relaunch, preserved bookmark, up-to-date About status and post-install platform trust. Both cloud DMGs are signed/notarized. GitHub draft publication recovery and all uploaded asset hashes/sizes were verified.

This draft targets codex/browser-operator-review-base, the exact original fix/simplification checkout snapshot, to show only this work. The original remote branch has been removed; current main has diverged and has not been rebased into this review. No merge or production rollout. Test publication remains an explicit prerelease operation without Omaha activation. Private keys, ephemeral generated cloud configuration, binaries and unrelated tracked node_modules changes are excluded. Windows/Linux, x86/universal, updater self-update and remote CircleCI execution remain unqualified.

[tysonthomas9]

Superseded by the requested focused stack: #102 (Chromium integration) → #103 (signed macOS releases) → #104 (native updates). Each PR targets the branch below it and contains only its incremental layer. Server/tests/deployment are maintained only in the private Omaha repository. CircleCI remains tysonthomas9/test-github-pipeline#7 with explicit cross-repository dependencies. Nothing was merged; this combined draft is retained for historical discussion.