Inaccurate linux/arm64 browser references in tags

[MikeMcC399]

Issue

Cypress Docker images cypress/browers and cypress/included use tags such as:

• cypress/browsers:node-22.14.0-chrome-133.0.6943.126-1-ff-135.0.1-edge-133.0.3065.82-1
• cypress/included:cypress-14.1.0-node-22.14.0-chrome-133.0.6943.126-1-ff-135.0.1-edge-133.0.3065.82-1

For linux/arm64 images, the browser part of the tag, for example chrome-133.0.6943.126-1-ff-135.0.1-edge-133.0.3065.82-1, is inaccurate. The above images contain NO browsers, due their previous unavailability. The tags are therefore misleading.

Firefox change

• With the release of Firefox 136.0, Firefox becomes available on ARM64 (AArch64) for Linux. PR feat: enable firefox arm64 build with cypress/factory #1307 proposes to include this into Cypress Docker linux/arm64 image builds.

• The next cypress/browsers release would then be tagged as

  cypress/browsers:node-22.14.0-chrome-134.0.6998.35-1-ff-136.0-edge-133.0.3065.92-1.

  Despite the tag's "information" the linux/arm64 image would contain no Chrome and no Edge browser, only the Firefox 136.0 browser.

Alternatives

1. Make no change. Continue to document the discrepancy in READMEs.

2. Correcting the tag for linux/arm64 images, to show only the Firefox browser, would affect the build and publishing workflow. linux/amd64 and linux/arm64 publication would need to be handled in separate jobs to avoid republication of immutable linux/arm64 images. If Chrome or Edge versions are updated, there should be no re-publication of the linux/arm64 image.

3. Coding full browser versions into Docker image tags produces long tags and is unwieldy. If WebKit were to be added, tags would become even longer. Docker images such as Debian differentiate their immutable images by adding a date-stamp into the tag. For instance bookworm-20250224-slim is the immutable image currently equivalent to 12.9-slim.

At this time it is not clear to me what the best way forward could be.

[MikeMcC399]

This issue is unavoidable given the current process for image release. To change it would require a complete re-work of the process.

Tags with browser coding are shared between amd64 and arm64 allowing transparent selection of the appropriate image. This would not be possible if the tags only listed the installed browsers.

Replacing browser version tags with date stamped tags would make it difficult to keep track of on-demand publication that avoid republishing over existing images.

I am closing this now as not feasible in terms of bug resolution. An alternative might be to publish new images at a fixed cadence instead of on demand, however this would have the disadvantage of delaying releases.