GPUPDAL npm installer

This directory is the publication source for the unscoped gpupdal package:

npm install gpupdal
npx gpupdal --version

For a shell-wide command, use npm install --global gpupdal followed by gpupdal --version.

GPUPDAL is native software. The public gpupdal package is a small launcher, not a JavaScript reimplementation. Exact optional dependencies install the matching immutable native and CUDA-runtime support packages for the current operating system. Installation does not depend on access to the source repository, a second download host, or an npm lifecycle script. Before packing, the release-set validator reconstructs the original platform archive from its two support packages and verifies every file against that archive's internal SHA256SUMS. The installed native tree contains the complete sibling bundle needed by the launcher (gpupdal, pdg-engine, and the pinned pdal oracle).

The checked-in manifest is intentionally empty and the development version is rejected by prepack. The manual release process stages one launcher and four internal support packages under dist/npm/, records both source-archive digests, validates the combined release set, performs clean-machine installs, publishes support packages first, and publishes gpupdal last. Users still install only gpupdal; npm selects the matching platform packages. Staging requires tar and unzip. See docs/releasing.md in the source repository for the exact commands. The package intentionally disables npm provenance for now because npm does not support provenance from a local manual publish or a private source repository.

The initial stable support declaration covers Linux x86-64 and Windows x64 with an NVIDIA GPU, driver 580 or newer, and the bundled CUDA 13 runtime. Physical exactness is qualified on compute capability 8.9 (RTX 4090 on Linux and NVIDIA L4 on Windows). The portable binaries contain every real architecture supported by their CUDA 13 compiler plus newest-target PTX, but an architecture is not advertised as stable until its physical fixed-bit lane passes. The same package also retains exact PDAL fallback behavior on a driverless host; that is compatibility, not a GPU-acceleration claim.

The npm installer validates the declared artifact; it does not reject a machine at install time for lacking the qualified GPU or driver. On such a machine the command may still run through its exact CPU/PDAL fallback, but no stable GPU-acceleration claim applies.

Publishing the unscoped package makes its current npm maintainers responsible for future releases, access changes, deprecation, and maintainer membership. The first publish therefore belongs in Zy Mazza's zymazza npm account. Keep authentication material outside the repository and retained logs. GPUPDAL does not need a paid npm organization for a public package.