Pi 3 simulation had been broken since at least April 2026 (51
fail-events / 24h per docs/PI3_EMULATION_BROKEN.md). Two distinct
defects compounded:
1. qemu_manager.py hard-coded paths for kernel8.img, a device-tree
blob (under a DOS 8.3 short name!), and a 5.4 GiB Raspberry Pi OS
SD image — none of which shipped in the repo or were pulled at
image build.
2. qemu-system-arm + qemu-utils were missing from the Docker image
entirely, so even with the boot files in place QEMU couldn't
launch. Add both to Dockerfile.standalone (~200 MB).
The architecture fix is a new `app.services.boot_images` module:
* Manifest-driven (boot_images/manifest.json, versioned in repo,
declares SHA256 + size for each file, supports an optional
`compressed.{encoding,sha256,size_bytes}` block for assets shipped
as .zst).
* `BootImageProvider` materialises files lazily, atomically (temp +
rename), verifies SHA256 pre- AND post-decompression, caches under
/var/cache/velxio/boot-images, serialises concurrent get() calls
per image set via asyncio.Lock.
* `AssetDownloader` Protocol with two impls:
- `LicenseGatedDownloader` — same flow ESP32 / RISC-V QEMU libs
use (VELXIO_BINARY_BASE_URL + VELXIO_LICENSE_KEY).
- `LocalDirectoryDownloader` — for tests + in-prod use where the
licence-module storage is already on the same filesystem (saves
the loopback HTTP roundtrip on a 1.4 GiB blob).
* `build_downloader_from_env()` picks one — local-dir wins if both
sets of env vars are present, so the prod box short-circuits to
direct disk reads automatically.
* Lifespan hook in qemu_manager.py pre-warms the cache on container
boot so first-time user requests don't pay the 30-60 s download
+ decompress latency.
Adding a future board kind (Pi 4 / Pi 5) is now: upload assets via
upload-binary.sh, append an entry to manifest.json, register a
lifespan pre-warm in the new board's service module. Zero edits to
provider.py / downloader.py.
Manifest entries for raspberry-pi-3:
kernel8.img 9 695 883 bytes (uncompressed)
bcm2710-rpi-3-b.dtb 34 687 bytes (uncompressed)
raspios-trixie-armhf.img 5 729 419 264 bytes raw
/ 1 488 002 803 bytes .zst on wire (zstd -19)
source: 2026-04-21 build from raspberrypi.com
Tests: 21 new unit tests covering manifest parsing, integrity
helpers, both downloaders, and the provider's idempotent /
concurrent / integrity / decompression / warmup paths. In-process
FakeDownloader keeps the suite under 1 s and httpx-free.
Docs: new docs/BOOT_IMAGES.md describes the architecture, on-disk
layout, named-volume operation, and the procedure for adding a new
image set.
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