binstall metadata: bin-dir "." yields an empty source path, so cargo binstall cannot install 0.5.0 #458

Problem

cargo binstall mdtablefix@0.5.0 on a clean Linux runner fails before any download with:

bin-dir configuration provided generates empty source path

and then, with --disable-strategies compile, refuses to build from source (as intended by the consumer's no-source-build policy). The cause is the [package.metadata.binstall] override for Linux GNU targets in Cargo.toml:

pkg-url = "{ repo }/releases/download/v{ version }/{ name }-{ version }-{ target }.tar.gz"
bin-dir = "."
pkg-fmt = "tgz"

bin-dir = "." yields an empty source path for the binary inside the archive. The v0.5.0 release does publish mdtablefix-0.5.0-<target>.tar.gz archives with .sha256 sidecars, so only the metadata is wrong.

Observed in leynos/netsuke#664 run 33801?????? (build-test on ubicloud-standard-2-ubuntu-2404, 2026-09-03), the first genuinely cold install after the move off a warm cache volume.

Proposal

1. Set bin-dir to the binary's path inside the archive, e.g. bin-dir = "{ bin }{ binary-ext }" if the archive is flat, or "{ name }-{ version }-{ target }/{ bin }{ binary-ext }" if it nests under a top-level directory (check the v0.5.0 tarball layout).
2. Add a CI check that runs cargo binstall --dry-run mdtablefix@<version> (or cargo binstall --disable-strategies compile) against the release metadata so a regression fails before release.
3. Ship it in a 0.5.1 with the same reproducible archive layout.

Until then consumers install from the pinned, checksum-verified tarball directly.

https://claude.ai/code/session_01QrjNTnTwM7FmWXe5KFPMPY