installer: build the builder image on Linux and on release installs

[mpuig]

Problem

Source-to-image builds boot builder VMs from hypeman/builder:latest, and the API's fallback for installed (non-source) services is to find that image in the local Docker daemon — lib/builds/manager.go's own comment says "the installer builds this image before loading the service". But the installer only does that in its darwin branch, and only for source (BRANCH) installs.

A Linux release install therefore has no builder image and no way to grow one: ensureBuilderImage finds no source checkout (go.mod absent) and no local hypeman/builder:latest, preparation retries forever, and every hypeman build fails. On v0.3.0 the failure is especially opaque — the ready flag is set in a defer even on failure, so builds proceed and die with create builder instance: image is required.

Reproduced on a GitHub-hosted ubuntu runner installing v0.3.0 via get.hypeman.sh.

Fix

The builder-image step now runs on every platform where Docker is present:

• source installs keep using the existing checkout in TMP_DIR;
• release installs fetch the source tarball for the exact installed $VERSION and build from it — the builder Dockerfile is part of the same tree the binaries were released from;
• skipped when hypeman/builder:latest already exists; warn-and-continue when it cannot be built (matching the existing style).

On Linux the service is already running by this point; the startup preparation loop picks the image up on its next retry. On macOS the ordering (build before service load) is unchanged.

Testing

• bash -n clean.
• The equivalent sequence (fetch pinned source → docker build -t hypeman/builder:latest -f lib/builds/images/generic/Dockerfile) is what we run in barista's CI as a workaround, and it takes a fresh ubuntu runner from "every build fails" to green source-to-image builds.

Found while building barista on hypeman. An alternative worth considering: publish a pinnable pre-built builder image and default build.builder_image to it, which would remove the Docker dependency from installs entirely.

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Note

Medium Risk
Install-time behavior changes for every Docker-backed install path (network fetch, privileged docker, longer installs); failures are non-fatal but source builds stay broken until the image is built manually.

Overview
Fixes broken hypeman build on Linux release installs by building hypeman/builder:latest during install whenever Docker is available, not only on macOS source installs.

The installer now skips if the image already exists, uses $SUDO docker when the user cannot talk to the daemon directly, and for tagged release installs downloads the matching GitHub source tarball so it can run docker build against lib/builds/images/generic/Dockerfile. Failed builds surface captured docker build output instead of hiding it; missing Docker or source still warns and continues like before.

On Linux the service may already be running when the image appears; the API’s builder-prep retry loop can pick it up. macOS still builds before launchctl load.

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit 94163c8. Bugbot is set up for automated code reviews on this repo. Configure here.}

[mpuig]

Good catch from Bugbot — fixed in b651481: docker access is now probed and escalated through the same $SUDO the rest of the script uses for privileged operations, so a non-docker-group invoking user on Linux still gets the image built. Also stopped discarding the docker build output — it now lands in a log file whose path the failure warning names, instead of 2>/dev/null-ing the only evidence of why a build failed.

[chruffins]

hey, thanks for submitting a PR for this! besides the bugbot finding which should be fixed, everything else looks good to me.

[cursor]

Build log dumped to wrong stream

Low Severity

The failure path announces that docker build output follows via warn (stdout), then prints the log with sed on stderr. Every other user-facing message and build-log dump in install.sh uses stdout, so the log can appear detached from the warning—or vanish entirely when stderr is discarded—undermining the print-before-cleanup fix.

 

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit 42cbab4. Configure here.}

[chruffins]

thanks for putting this in!

[chruffins]

/test

[cursor]

Cursor Bugbot has reviewed your changes using high effort and found 1 potential issue.

There are 2 total unresolved issues (including 1 from previous review).

^{❌ Bugbot Autofix is OFF. To automatically fix reported issues with cloud agents, enable autofix in the Cursor dashboard.}

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit 94163c8. Configure here.}

[cursor]

Build continues after Docker probes fail

Low Severity

When both docker info and $SUDO docker info fail, DOCKER stays set to docker and the script still enters the build path. For release installs that means fetching the version source tarball before docker build fails for the same unreachable daemon, instead of skipping early with a clear accessibility warning.

Additional Locations (1)

• scripts/install.sh#L677-L685

 

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit 94163c8. Configure here.}