CEF Vendor Layout

Chromium mode uses CEF as the bundled engine backend. The Native SDK does not vendor CEF binaries in git.

CEF runtime archives are platform-specific. The default install directory is selected from the host platform:

macOS:   third_party/cef/macos
Linux:   third_party/cef/linux
Windows: third_party/cef/windows

Install the default macOS CEF runtime with:

native cef install

The default installer downloads Native SDK's prepared runtime from GitHub Releases. It already includes libcef_dll_wrapper.a, so app developers do not need CMake.

Expected layouts:

third_party/cef/macos/
  include/cef_app.h
  Release/Chromium Embedded Framework.framework/
  Resources/
  libcef_dll_wrapper/libcef_dll_wrapper.a

third_party/cef/linux/
  include/cef_app.h
  Release/libcef.so
  Resources/
  locales/
  libcef_dll_wrapper/libcef_dll_wrapper.a

third_party/cef/windows/
  include/cef_app.h
  Release/libcef.dll
  Resources/
  libcef_dll_wrapper/libcef_dll_wrapper.lib

Use a custom location with:

native cef install --dir /path/to/cef
zig build run-webview -Dcef-dir=/path/to/cef

Advanced users can install from official CEF archives and build the wrapper locally:

native cef install --source official --allow-build-tools --dir /path/to/cef

Core maintainers can build CEF itself from source before a prepared Native SDK release exists, or when testing a new CEF branch:

tools/cef/build-from-source.sh --platform macosarm64 --cef-branch <branch> --output zig-out/cef

That script uses CEF's automate-git.py, depot_tools, CMake, and the platform compiler toolchain to produce the same native-sdk-cef-<version>-<platform>.tar.gz asset uploaded by the CEF runtime release workflow. This is a maintainer path only; app developers should use native cef install.

Verify the layout before building with:

native doctor --manifest app.zon --cef-dir /path/to/cef

For local development, the build can opt into installing CEF automatically:

zig build run-webview -Dcef-auto-install=true

Normally Chromium is selected in app.zon with .web_engine = "chromium" and .cef.dir. The -Dweb-engine, --web-engine, -Dcef-dir, and --cef-dir flags are one-off overrides.

System WebView mode does not require this directory.