From b9840c5801c4edb72dcde2e9539f7dae915e3bf3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Richard van der Hoff <1389908+richvdh@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2025 11:52:24 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Fixes to docs and scripts for building seshat (#2733)

... because it took me all day to figure out.
---
 README.md                   |  4 +++-
 docs/native-node-modules.md | 28 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
 scripts/hak/link.ts         | 32 ++++----------------------------
 scripts/in-docker.sh        |  6 ++++++
 4 files changed, 39 insertions(+), 31 deletions(-)

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 47156350..a71c85c8 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -52,7 +52,9 @@ If you only want to run the app locally and don't need to build packages, you ca
 provide the `webapp` directory directly:
 
 ```
-# Assuming you've checked out and built a copy of element-web in ../element-web
+# Assuming you've checked out and built a copy of element-web in ../element-web.
+# Note that you will not be able to `yarn build` after this, but `yarn start`
+# will work fine.
 ln -s ../element-web/webapp ./
 ```
 
diff --git a/docs/native-node-modules.md b/docs/native-node-modules.md
index 675af42c..ab226184 100644
--- a/docs/native-node-modules.md
+++ b/docs/native-node-modules.md
@@ -13,12 +13,35 @@ custom build of Element without installing the various build tools required.
 The process is automated by [vector-im/element-builder](https://github.com/vector-im/element-builder)
 when releasing.
 
+## Use docker
+
+If you are building for Linux, you can build the native modules with:
+
+```
+yarn docker:setup
+yarn docker:install
+INDOCKER_SQLCIPHER_BUNDLED=1 yarn docker:build:native
+```
+
+The above will build `matrix-seshat` in
+`docker/node_modules/matrix-seshat`. You can then either run `yarn docker:build`
+to build the app inside docker, or:
+
+```
+yarn --cwd docker/node_modules/matrix-seshat link
+yarn link matrix-seshat
+```
+
+... and build the app with `yarn build` or run it with `yarn start`.
+
+(See also https://github.com/element-hq/element-desktop#docker.)
+
 ## Building
 
 Install the pre-requisites for your system:
 
 - [Windows pre-requisites](https://github.com/vector-im/element-desktop/blob/develop/docs/windows-requirements.md)
-- Linux: TODO
+- Linux: TODO. Using the docker environment as above is recommended.
 - OS X: TODO
 
 Then optionally, [add seshat and dependencies to support search in E2E rooms](#adding-seshat-for-search-in-e2e-encrypted-rooms).
@@ -56,7 +79,8 @@ This is also needed to when pulling in changes to Seshat using `yarn link`.
 
 Recompiling Seshat itself can be done like so:
 
-    yarn run electron-build-env -- --electron 6.1.1 -- neon build matrix-seshat --release
+    ELECTRON_VERSION=$(electron --version)
+    yarn run electron-build-env -- --electron ${ELECTRON_VERSION#v} -- neon build matrix-seshat --release
 
 Please make sure to include all the `--` as well as the `--release` command line
 switch at the end. Modify your electron version accordingly depending on the
diff --git a/scripts/hak/link.ts b/scripts/hak/link.ts
index c2c43ceb..f528c154 100644
--- a/scripts/hak/link.ts
+++ b/scripts/hak/link.ts
@@ -7,41 +7,17 @@ Please see LICENSE files in the repository root for full details.
 */
 
 import path from "node:path";
-import os from "node:os";
-import fsProm from "node:fs/promises";
 
 import type HakEnv from "./hakEnv.js";
 import { type DependencyInfo } from "./dep.js";
 
 export default async function link(hakEnv: HakEnv, moduleInfo: DependencyInfo): Promise<void> {
-    const yarnrc = path.join(hakEnv.projectRoot, ".yarnrc");
-    // this is fairly terrible but it's reasonably clunky to either parse a yarnrc
-    // properly or get yarn to do it, so this will probably suffice for now.
-    // We just check to see if there is a local .yarnrc at all, and assume that
-    // if you've put one there yourself, you probably know what you're doing and
-    // we won't meddle with it.
-    // Also we do this for each module which is unnecessary, but meh.
-    try {
-        await fsProm.stat(yarnrc);
-    } catch {
-        await fsProm.writeFile(
-            yarnrc,
-            // XXX: 1. This must be absolute, as yarn will resolve link directories
-            // relative to the closest project root, which means when we run it
-            // in the dependency project, it will put the link directory in its
-            // own project folder rather than the main project.
-            // 2. The parser gets very confused by strings with colons in them
-            // (ie. Windows absolute paths) but strings in quotes get parsed as
-            // JSON so need to be valid JSON encoded strings (ie. have the
-            // backslashes escaped). JSON.stringify will add quotes and escape.
-            "--link-folder " + JSON.stringify(path.join(hakEnv.dotHakDir, "links")) + os.EOL,
-        );
-    }
-
-    await hakEnv.spawn("yarn", ["link"], {
+    const linkFolder = path.join(hakEnv.dotHakDir, "links");
+    await hakEnv.spawn("yarn", ["link", "--link-folder", linkFolder], {
         cwd: moduleInfo.moduleOutDir,
     });
-    await hakEnv.spawn("yarn", ["link", moduleInfo.name], {
+
+    await hakEnv.spawn("yarn", ["link", "--link-folder", linkFolder, moduleInfo.name], {
         cwd: hakEnv.projectRoot,
     });
 }
diff --git a/scripts/in-docker.sh b/scripts/in-docker.sh
index 231ddd88..99282075 100755
--- a/scripts/in-docker.sh
+++ b/scripts/in-docker.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 #!/bin/bash
 
+set -e
+
+cd $(dirname "$0")/..
+
 IMAGE=${DOCKER_IMAGE_NAME:-"element-desktop-dockerbuild"}
 
 docker inspect "$IMAGE" 2> /dev/null > /dev/null
@@ -8,6 +12,8 @@ if [ $? != 0 ]; then
     exit 1
 fi
 
+mkdir -p docker/node_modules docker/.hak docker/.gnupg
+
 # Taken from https://www.electron.build/multi-platform-build#docker
 # Pass through any vars prefixed with INDOCKER_, removing the prefix
 docker run --rm -ti \