0.13.0: deps-vcpkg, deps-cmake and rules-qt, written against mcpp's SPEC-007 (engine floor 2026.9.26.2)

[speak-agent]

Engine floor: mcpp 2026.9.26.2, the release that lands mcpp-community/mcpp#702 (MCPP_VERSION: 2026.9.26.2 in CI). The members are written against mcpp's SPEC-007 (docs/specs/build-plugins.md): mcpp::runtime_search_dir, mcpp::roles::prepare with output_dir, the engine-maintained stamp, and the Windows DLL placement after the link.

Design record and plan: .agents/docs/2026-09-26-deps-vcpkg-rules-qt-design.md (§0.1 states the implementation's decisions), .agents/docs/2026-09-26-deps-vcpkg-rules-qt-plan.md. The xim packages this needs are published: openxlings/xim-pkgindex#878 (vcpkg 2026.7.27, qt and qt-addons 6.11.1).

A fourth family: deps-*, where a library comes from

A deps-* member installs a prefix through a program mcpp does not drive and maps it into the build by name. The installation is a prepare action whose output directory is the prefix and whose command is mcpp-deps, a program built from this package (tools = ["mcpp-deps"]): an action has no environment, vcpkg is configured through its environment, and two workspace members installing one prefix take a lock on it. The build program states the include directory, the libraries by full path and the runtime search directory, and never reads what the installation produces (SPEC-007 R1.3), so mcpp emit build-database on a machine that never built plans what the build will do.

• deps-vcpkg (mcpp.deps.vcpkg): a vcpkg.json manifest found at or above the package root; the triplet derived from the target or named; overlay ports and triplets as the action's inputs; the triplet file decides the link form. xim:vcpkg is vcpkg-tool 2026-07-27 with the standalone bundle published beside it, so builtin-baseline resolves through vcpkg's git registry into its per-user cache and no clone is made per project. Build trees and downloads go to vcpkg's per-user directory, beside its default binary cache.
• deps-cmake (mcpp.deps.cmake): a CMake subproject configured, built and installed by one action whose inputs are the subproject's files; layout names nested install directories, prefix_path becomes CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH.

rules-qt

moc (headers declaring a meta-object, found by content, and sources including their own .moc), uic, rcc and lrelease as source actions with declared inputs; lupdate as a prepare action when update_sources asks for it. The modules are linked by full path; the SDK's bin/ or lib/ is a runtime search directory (on Windows the engine places the Qt DLLs the program imports beside it); the plugin directories deploy_plugins names are deployed. A missing SDK, module or tool is a warning (R1.2). rules-qt-xim declares xim:qt 6.11.1 and, on Linux, the glib, zstd and zlib QtCore loads; rules-qt-xim-addons adds xim:qt-addons as a second prefix. On Linux the rule serves programs that do not load QtGui (QtGui needs libdbus-1.so.3, which the ecosystem does not publish); on macOS the modules are frameworks.

CI

all-rules-compile requires every member that carries sources and checks that every name it lists is declared; payload-only features (rules-qt-xim, dist-apk-kotlin) are no longer required there, so no SDK is downloaded on every host. .github/scripts/check-deps-and-qt.sh holds the criteria and runs on Linux, macOS and Windows: planning installs nothing and still names the include directory; a second build with nothing changed runs no installation; an edited subproject source rebuilds the subproject once and the build after it does not; two workspace members that share no dependency both install and link one prefix; moc, rcc and lrelease reach the program; on Windows the program started from the build directory finds its DLLs, and the packed tree carries fmt.dll, the Qt modules and platforms/qoffscreen.dll.

Consumer

Sunrisepeak/GalTranslPP temporary PR 2 builds through these members on windows-2025 once this is released.