feat: error for win32/ia32 and linux/armv7l downloads of Electron >= 44

[claude]

Requested by Samuel Attard, David Sanders · Slack thread

Before

Electron 44 dropped 32-bit Windows (win32/ia32) and armv7l Linux (linux/armv7l) builds — the first releases without those artifacts are v44.0.0-alpha.4 and v45.0.0-nightly.20260714. Calling downloadArtifact for, say, win32/ia32 on Electron 44+ attempted the download anyway and surfaced a raw, unexplained HTTP 404 from GitHub releases.

After

The same call fails fast with a descriptive error before any network request is made:

Electron v44.0.0 does not have a published win32/ia32 artifact. Electron 44 and newer no longer publish win32/ia32 or linux/armv7l builds; the last release line with 32-bit support is Electron 43, which is supported until January 2027.

Unaffected:

• Electron <= 43 downloads for both arches (including the 44 prereleases that still shipped them, 44.0.0-alpha.1–alpha.3, and nightlies before v45.0.0-nightly.20260714)
• Custom mirrors (mirrorOptions), which may legitimately host their own 32-bit builds — same scoping as the existing isOfficialLinuxIA32Download check
• Cache hits — the guard runs after the cache lookup, so previously cached artifacts still resolve

How

• src/utils.ts: new isOfficialDropped32BitDownload(platform, arch, version, mirrorOptions) mirroring the structure of the existing isOfficialLinuxIA32Download. It compares against 44.0.0-alpha.4 with semver.gte (a plain < 44.0.0 / >= 44.0.0 bound would misclassify the 44 prereleases), and against 45.0.0-nightly.20260714 for nightly versions, since semver orders -nightly after -alpha even though those nightlies predate the drop.
• src/index.ts: guard in downloadArtifact, placed after the cache-read short-circuit next to the existing linux/ia32 warning. The existing precedent warns rather than throws, but there the artifact still exists for applicable versions — here the artifact is gone entirely, so this throws a descriptive error instead of letting the download 404.
• src/types.ts: qualified the ia32 / armv7l arch examples in the JSDoc with "(Electron 43 and earlier)".
• Tests: unit coverage for both arches on both sides of the 44.0.0-alpha.4 boundary, the nightly boundary, 43.x, custom mirrors, and never-dropped platform/arch combinations, plus downloadArtifact-level tests for the throw and the mirror/legacy passthroughs.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01KEEZg64JKFrSDAc7u4V4Na

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