gnome desktop contract

gnome-shell plus a session file is not a complete desktop. In particular, the session can start while file dialogs, screenshots, removable media, portals, and keyring-backed credentials remain unusable.

The package repository now provides verify-gnome-desktop-experience.py, a package-manager-neutral hard-fail check. It requires the core session, file-manager, portal, and keyring packages:

gdm
gnome-keyring
gnome-session
gnome-shell
gvfs
mutter
nautilus
xdg-desktop-portal-gnome

Run it after the base-specific package installation, before publishing the image. Examples:

rpm -qa --qf '%{NAME}\\n' | \
  python3 scripts/verify-gnome-desktop-experience.py /dev/stdin

dpkg-query -W -f '${binary:Package}\\n' | \
  python3 scripts/verify-gnome-desktop-experience.py /dev/stdin

The check deliberately validates names rather than image size or package count. Metapackages can expand to very different numbers of packages across openSUSE, Debian, and Ubuntu; a size threshold would miss a missing component or reject a valid but compact dependency closure. Base-specific translations should use the package names actually emitted by that package manager, and any name that cannot be resolved should fail the build rather than be ignored.