build-app-local

build-app-local is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from gethouston/houston. It costs 55 tokens per session (1,091 once invoked), scanned C, original, MIT.

A manual macOS release-build workflow for Houston. It builds the app for Apple and Intel Macs, signs and notarizes the disk image, verifies the packaged app, and copies it to the Desktop.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to create, notarize, staple, verify, and package a universal Houston DMG for local release testing or delivery.
Why use it?
It provides a fallback when the normal CI release process is broken. It also removes stale build output and checks that the bundled local process is current.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it to create, notarize, staple, verify, and package a universal Houston DMG for local release testing or delivery.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/gethouston/houston/build-app-local
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add gethouston/houston --skill build-app-local
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/gethouston/houston

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for build-app-local

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/gethouston/houston/build-app-local/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/gethouston/houston/build-app-local)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/gethouston/houston/build-app-local"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/gethouston/houston/build-app-local/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for build-app-local

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/gethouston/houston/build-app-local"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/gethouston/houston/build-app-local.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 55 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,091 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan C 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00055 $0.01091
Opus 5 $0.00028 $0.00545
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00218
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00109

Measured 10d ago against content hash fb6475ae7c8c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

build-app-local scanned grade C with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 10d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Recursive force deletehighDestructive command

rm -rf with a variable or a broad path is one typo away from removing the wrong tree.

rm -rf app/src-tauri/target/universal-apple-darwin/release/bundle
Origin

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

skills/build-app-local/SKILL.md · 101 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 101 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/build-app-local

Manual macOS build. CI broken? Use this. Normal path = /release.

Pre-reqs

Env vars set in shell:

  • APPLE_SIGNING_IDENTITY — Developer ID string
  • APPLE_API_KEY — App Store Connect key ID
  • APPLE_API_KEY_PATH — path to .p8
  • APPLE_API_ISSUER — issuer UUID
  • TAURI_SIGNING_PRIVATE_KEY + TAURI_SIGNING_PRIVATE_KEY_PASSWORD
  • POSTHOG_KEY · POSTHOG_HOST · SUPABASE_URL · SUPABASE_ANON_KEY · SENTRY_DSN

Flow

# 0. One-time: ensure both macOS rustup targets installed
rustup target add aarch64-apple-darwin x86_64-apple-darwin

# 1. Clean stale
cd ..  # workspace root
rm -rf app/src-tauri/target/universal-apple-darwin/release/bundle
rm -rf app/dist

# 2. Bun-compile the host sidecar for BOTH arches (required for universal).
#    This produces target/host-sidecar/houston-host-<triple> (+ stamps it with
#    HEAD and stages the sibling `claude` binary); build.rs stages both into the
#    bundle and, for a --release build, FAILS if the sidecar's inputs changed
#    since it was compiled (staleness guard). --verify boots the native slice and
#    curls /v1/capabilities + /v1/catalog, so run it on the host-native arch only.
#
#    Cross-arch note: the non-native slice needs its Claude SDK platform package
#    force-installed first (the pnpm store only has the host-matching one). On an
#    Apple Silicon Mac the x86_64 slice needs the darwin-x64 package — match the
#    @anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk version in packages/runtime/package.json:
#    pnpm add -w @anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk-darwin-x64@<version> --force
scripts/build-host-sidecar.sh aarch64-apple-darwin --verify   # native on Apple Silicon
scripts/build-host-sidecar.sh x86_64-apple-darwin             # cross-arch slice

# 3. Build + auto-sign the app (universal fat binary)
cd app
pnpm tauri build --target universal-apple-darwin

Tauri signs .app. Does NOT notarize DMG. Must do manually:

# 4. Submit DMG to Apple for notarization (note universal path)
DMG="src-tauri/target/universal-apple-darwin/release/bundle/dmg/Houston_${VERSION}_universal.dmg"
xcrun notarytool submit "$DMG" \
  --key "$APPLE_API_KEY_PATH" \
  --key-id "$APPLE_API_KEY" \
  --issuer "$APPLE_API_ISSUER" \
  --wait

# 5. Staple ticket to DMG
xcrun stapler staple "$DMG"

# 6. Verify
xcrun stapler validate "$DMG"
spctl -a -vvv -t install "$DMG"
lipo -info "$(hdiutil attach "$DMG" -nobrowse -mountpoint /tmp/hmnt -quiet && echo /tmp/hmnt/*.app/Contents/MacOS/houston-engine)"
# → expect: "Architectures in the fat file: ... x86_64 arm64"
hdiutil detach /tmp/hmnt -quiet

Read the full file on GitHub · 101 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 10d ago First seen · 101 lines · 55 tokens per session scan C fb6475ae7c8c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

build-app-local is a skill published in the GitHub repository gethouston/houston (112 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 55 tokens to every session and 1,091 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it C with 1 finding (recursive force delete). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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