AnyBundle

AnyBundle builds a single sh / PowerShell polyglot self-extracting launcher that can carry native payloads for Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Run the generated .sh.ps1 file with POSIX sh or PowerShell:

sh ./myapp-any-platform.sh.ps1 -- --version
./myapp-any-platform.sh.ps1 list

powershell ./myapp-any-platform.sh.ps1 -- --version
powershell ./myapp-any-platform.sh.ps1 unpack -o myapp.exe --platform win-x64

What it is

A generated bundle contains:

• a small polyglot launcher;
• a text manifest;
• base64 payload blocks, one per platform.

At runtime it detects the current platform, extracts the matching payload to a cache, verifies SHA-256, and executes it.

Supported platform keys:

• win-x64
• win-x86
• win-arm64
• linux-x64
• linux-x86
• linux-arm64
• macos-x64
• macos-arm64

Build AnyBundle

cc -std=c11 -O2 -Wall -Wextra -o anybundle src/*.c

On Windows with MSVC Developer Prompt:

cl /O2 /Fe:anybundle.exe src\*.c

Build a universal bundle

./anybundle build \
  --name myapp \
  --version 1.0.0 \
  --win-x64 ./dist/myapp-win-x64.exe \
  --win-x86 ./dist/myapp-win-x86.exe \
  --win-arm64 ./dist/myapp-win-arm64.exe \
  --linux-x64 ./dist/myapp-linux-x64 \
  --linux-x86 ./dist/myapp-linux-x86 \
  --linux-arm64 ./dist/myapp-linux-arm64 \
  --macos-x64 ./dist/myapp-macos-x64 \
  --macos-arm64 ./dist/myapp-macos-arm64 \
  -o myapp-v1.0.0-any-platform.sh.ps1

Include the platforms you want to distribute. --name and --version identify the application. Each extracted file uses its input basename; use --entry NAME to choose a common filename for all payloads. Run anybundle --help for the full option list.

Generated bundle commands

bundle.sh.ps1 [command] [options] [-- payload-args]

Commands:

• run — extract current platform payload and execute it. This is the default.
• -- — shorthand for default run; everything after it goes to the inner program.
• unpack — extract a payload and do not run it.
• list — list embedded platforms.
• info — print the embedded manifest.
• verify — extract and hash-check all embedded payloads.
• clean-cache — remove this application's cached files.

On POSIX systems, the cache is stored under $XDG_CACHE_HOME/anybundle or $HOME/.cache/anybundle. On Windows, it is stored under %LOCALAPPDATA%\AnyBundle\cache, with %TEMP%\AnyBundle\cache as the fallback.

Examples:

sh ./myapp-any-platform.sh.ps1 run -- --help
sh ./myapp-any-platform.sh.ps1 unpack -o ./myapp --platform linux-x64
sh ./myapp-any-platform.sh.ps1 verify
sh ./myapp-any-platform.sh.ps1 clean-cache

powershell ./myapp-any-platform.sh.ps1 run -- --help
powershell ./myapp-any-platform.sh.ps1 unpack -o .\myapp.exe --win-x64

Bundle AnyBundle itself

AnyBundle can package its own native binaries using the same build command:

cd build/dist
./anybundle-v1.0.0-linux-x64 build \
  --name anybundle \
  --version 1.0.0 \
  --win-x64 ./anybundle-v1.0.0-win-x64.exe \
  --linux-x64 ./anybundle-v1.0.0-linux-x64 \
  --macos-arm64 ./anybundle-v1.0.0-macos-arm64 \
  -o anybundle-v1.0.0-any-platform.sh.ps1

Then use the bundle directly:

powershell ./anybundle-v1.0.0-any-platform.sh.ps1 -- build --win-x64 xxx.exe -o xxx-any-platform.sh.ps1

Or unpack a native binary:

powershell ./anybundle-v1.0.0-any-platform.sh.ps1 unpack -o anybundle.exe --win-x64
powershell ./anybundle-v1.0.0-any-platform.sh.ps1 unpack -o anybundle --linux-x64

Runtime requirements

• Linux and macOS: POSIX sh, standard command-line utilities, base64 or openssl, and sha256sum or shasum.
• Windows: Windows PowerShell 5.1 or PowerShell 7. Use powershell or pwsh to run the bundle.

Payloads are stored as Base64, which adds about 33% to their size before compression. Each payload must be built for its target platform and include or otherwise provide its runtime dependencies.

Development

The launcher template is templates/launcher.sh.ps1. After editing it, regenerate the C resource:

python3 tools/embed_launcher.py
python3 tools/embed_launcher.py --check

Tests

Build the example payload, then run the suite with Python 3:

make anybundle
cc -std=c11 -O2 -Wall -Wextra -o examples/hello examples/hello.c
python3 tests/regression.py --builder ./anybundle --payload examples/hello --shell sh -v
python3 tests/regression.py --builder ./anybundle --payload examples/hello --shell bash -v

On Windows, after building anybundle.exe:

cl /O2 /Fe:hello.exe examples\hello.c
python tests/regression.py --builder .\anybundle.exe --payload .\hello.exe --shell powershell --runtime powershell -v
python tests/regression.py --builder .\anybundle.exe --payload .\hello.exe --shell powershell --runtime pwsh -v

GitHub Actions runs the test suite on Linux, macOS, and Windows.