diff --git a/Documentation/Bugs/fswatcher-create-event-swallowed-linux.md b/Documentation/Bugs/fswatcher-create-event-swallowed-linux.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9e48921
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/Bugs/fswatcher-create-event-swallowed-linux.md
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+# Bug: watcher swallows Create events on Linux (debounce replaces instead of merges)
+
+**Date found:** 2026-07-16
+**Found during:** local-embeddings epic, Phase 5 Linux verification (first-ever test run on Linux)
+**Status:** Fix submitted — PR #5 (`fix/watcher-create-swallowed-linux`, based on `main`, independent of the epic PR stack)
+**Severity:** Low today (no user-visible breakage), latent correctness risk
+
+## Symptom
+
+`go test ./internal/watcher/` fails deterministically on Linux (3/3 runs, Docker
+`golang:1.26-bookworm`, arm64):
+
+```
+--- FAIL: TestOnCreate (2.01s)
+    fswatcher_test.go:121: expected OnCreate to be called
+```
+
+`TestOnModify` and `TestOnDelete` pass. The full suite is green on macOS.
+
+## Root cause
+
+Writing a new file on Linux (inotify) emits **two events** for the same path within
+milliseconds: `CREATE`, then `WRITE`. In `internal/watcher/fswatcher.go`,
+`handleEvent` → `debounce(path, fn)` stores **one pending closure per path and
+replaces it** on each new event (`fswatcher.go:114-128`): the `WRITE` event cancels
+the `CREATE` timer and substitutes a closure that only sees `WRITE`. When the
+debounce fires, the handler classifies the event as a modification —
+`handler.OnCreate` is never called for newly written files.
+
+macOS (fsnotify kqueue/FSEvents backend) delivers/coalesces these events differently,
+so the swallow never manifests there.
+
+## Impact
+
+- **Today: effectively none for users.** `engine.OnCreate` and `engine.OnModify`
+  are identical (`engine.go:717-747` — both call `IndexFile`), so new files on
+  Linux are still indexed, merely misclassified as modifications.
+- **Latent risk:** any future divergence between create and modify handling
+  (e.g. create-only bookkeeping, activity-log semantics, per-event UX) silently
+  breaks on Linux only.
+- Blocks a fully green `go test ./...` on Linux (Phase 5 verify gate) until fixed.
+
+## Fix (applied in PR #5)
+
+In the debouncer, **accumulate the fsnotify op bits per path** instead of replacing
+the closure — e.g. keep `pendingOps map[string]fsnotify.Op`, OR-ing each event's op;
+when the timer fires, classify with precedence Remove/Rename > Create > Write/Chmod
+from the merged bits, then clear the entry. Semantics on macOS are unchanged
+(single-op case degenerates to today's behavior); Linux create+write merges to
+Create. `TestOnCreate` then passes on both platforms.
+
+Fix delivered as its own small PR per working rules (the watcher is outside the
+local-embeddings epic's scope): **PR #5**. Verified there: watcher suite 3/3 pass
+on Linux arm64 (was 3/3 fail) and 3/3 pass on macOS.
diff --git a/Documentation/Epics/local-embeddings.md b/Documentation/Epics/local-embeddings.md
index 36c9a28..93386c9 100644
--- a/Documentation/Epics/local-embeddings.md
+++ b/Documentation/Epics/local-embeddings.md
@@ -365,8 +365,10 @@ and the indexing-progress UX all already exist and are the extension points.
 ### Explicitly unchanged
 
 `internal/watcher/`, `internal/extractor/`, `internal/mcp/dispatch.go`, `internal/mcp/stdio.go`
-(interface types unchanged — `ReadOnlyEngineService` signature is stable), `tray.go`,
+(interface types unchanged — `ReadOnlyEngineService` signature is stable),
 `internal/store/sqlite_readonly.go`, all search/KNN logic in `store.Search`.
+(~~`tray.go`~~ — removed from this list in Phase 5: it required a `//go:build darwin` guard
++ non-darwin stub to compile anywhere but macOS; see Phase 5 Linux findings.)
 
 ### Known dead-code risks to check at the end
 
@@ -441,6 +443,25 @@ and the indexing-progress UX all already exist and are the extension points.
 - `dylibCandidates` gains the versioned Linux name (`libonnxruntime.so.1.26.0`) that the
   official Linux tarball actually ships.
 
+**Linux findings (recorded 2026-07-16, branch `feat/xplat-linux`):**
+
+- **`tray.go` was never darwin-guarded** — its Cocoa CGo preamble compiled on every platform,
+  making *any* non-macOS build impossible. Fixed here (`//go:build darwin` + no-op
+  `tray_stub.go`); this removes tray.go from the "Explicitly unchanged" list (deviation
+  recorded per the rules — CLAUDE.md already declared it macOS-only in intent).
+- **Pre-existing watcher bug surfaced by first-ever Linux test run:** inotify emits
+  CREATE+WRITE for a new file; the per-path debouncer replaces rather than merges events, so
+  OnCreate is swallowed (OnModify fires instead — no user impact today since both index the
+  file). Documented in `Documentation/Bugs/fswatcher-create-event-swallowed-linux.md`;
+  fix deliberately kept out of this epic's PRs (watcher is out of scope).
+- **linux-arm64 verified end-to-end** in Docker (golang:1.26-bookworm): `make assets`
+  checksums, test suite (watcher known-fail excepted), real int8 inference (cosine ordering
+  0.140 < 0.171 < 0.286, matching Phase 0), full Wails build (webkit2gtk-4.1 via the
+  `webkit2_41` tag), and an offline (`--network none`) MCP search that retrieved correct
+  semantic matches from a macOS-indexed DB — cross-platform vector compatibility confirmed.
+- **linux-amd64**: artifacts pinned and checksum-verified; runtime smoke still pending
+  (needs an x64 Linux env — Docker on the arm64 dev Mac would run it under slow emulation).
+
 1. Linux x64/arm64: assets manifest entries, CI build, smoke test.
 2. Windows x64: CI job builds `libtokenizers.a` with Rust toolchain (no published binary);
    ORT DLL from official release; smoke test.
diff --git a/assets/manifest.json b/assets/manifest.json
index 805c099..1d31955 100644
--- a/assets/manifest.json
+++ b/assets/manifest.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "schema": 1,
-  "comment": "Pinned local-embedding artifacts (URLs + SHA-256). Weights/libs are NEVER committed; `make assets` downloads and checksum-verifies these into internal/embeddings/local/embedded/ (go:embed runtime assets) and internal/embeddings/local/lib/ (link-time static lib). For tarball artifacts, `sha256` is the checksum of the downloaded archive and `member_sha256` is the checksum of the extracted member. `dest` is relative to internal/embeddings/local/. Only darwin-arm64 is populated in Phase 3a; other platforms land in Phase 5.",
+  "comment": "Pinned local-embedding artifacts (URLs + SHA-256). Weights/libs are NEVER committed; `make assets` downloads and checksum-verifies these into internal/embeddings/local/embedded/ (go:embed runtime assets) and internal/embeddings/local/lib/ (link-time static lib). For tarball artifacts, `sha256` is the checksum of the downloaded archive and `member_sha256` is the checksum of the extracted member. `dest` is relative to internal/embeddings/local/. Model + tokenizer entries are identical bytes on every platform (per-platform keyed for a uniform `make assets`). Remaining Phase 5 platforms: windows-amd64, darwin-amd64.",
   "platforms": {
     "darwin-arm64": {
       "model": {
@@ -27,6 +27,58 @@
         "member_sha256": "c91ae814afb8fe4f000099972208f60c3aa2d13899a7cd5a31fee2e9e2efbac7",
         "dest": "lib/libtokenizers.a"
       }
+    },
+    "linux-arm64": {
+      "model": {
+        "url": "https://huggingface.co/Xenova/multilingual-e5-small/resolve/main/onnx/model_quantized.onnx",
+        "sha256": "f80102d3f2a1229f387d3c81909990d8945513e347b0eab049f7de3c6f98c193",
+        "dest": "embedded/model_quantized.onnx"
+      },
+      "tokenizer": {
+        "url": "https://huggingface.co/Xenova/multilingual-e5-small/resolve/main/tokenizer.json",
+        "sha256": "0b44a9d7b51c3c62626640cda0e2c2f70fdacdc25bbbd68038369d14ebdf4c39",
+        "dest": "embedded/tokenizer.json"
+      },
+      "onnxruntime": {
+        "url": "https://github.com/microsoft/onnxruntime/releases/download/v1.26.0/onnxruntime-linux-aarch64-1.26.0.tgz",
+        "sha256": "34ff1c2d0f12e2cf3d33a0c5f82e39792e1d581fbd6968fd7c30d173654be01a",
+        "member": "onnxruntime-linux-aarch64-1.26.0/lib/libonnxruntime.so.1.26.0",
+        "member_sha256": "115ecb838e703d390262b8b4d07d5248e6693c67658d4c98c48f94905ab27af4",
+        "dest": "embedded/libonnxruntime.so.1.26.0"
+      },
+      "tokenizers_static": {
+        "url": "https://github.com/daulet/tokenizers/releases/download/v1.27.0/libtokenizers.linux-arm64.tar.gz",
+        "sha256": "e96545ad05930c26f51f63d932ee6d3bbd32bbed149e102c5290d587a2293067",
+        "member": "libtokenizers.a",
+        "member_sha256": "aa4d3a7d28023e439fa7a645fb606195acafb5c33c8cd01928ed1aacfc4c074e",
+        "dest": "lib/libtokenizers.a"
+      }
+    },
+    "linux-amd64": {
+      "model": {
+        "url": "https://huggingface.co/Xenova/multilingual-e5-small/resolve/main/onnx/model_quantized.onnx",
+        "sha256": "f80102d3f2a1229f387d3c81909990d8945513e347b0eab049f7de3c6f98c193",
+        "dest": "embedded/model_quantized.onnx"
+      },
+      "tokenizer": {
+        "url": "https://huggingface.co/Xenova/multilingual-e5-small/resolve/main/tokenizer.json",
+        "sha256": "0b44a9d7b51c3c62626640cda0e2c2f70fdacdc25bbbd68038369d14ebdf4c39",
+        "dest": "embedded/tokenizer.json"
+      },
+      "onnxruntime": {
+        "url": "https://github.com/microsoft/onnxruntime/releases/download/v1.26.0/onnxruntime-linux-x64-1.26.0.tgz",
+        "sha256": "1254da24fb389cf39dc0ff3451ab48301740ffbfcbaf646849df92f80ee92c57",
+        "member": "onnxruntime-linux-x64-1.26.0/lib/libonnxruntime.so.1.26.0",
+        "member_sha256": "5bd5bedf736fc501692435d0ec4f6e8b2bdf48cd30af8e6d00d61b3ddc9a7ab8",
+        "dest": "embedded/libonnxruntime.so.1.26.0"
+      },
+      "tokenizers_static": {
+        "url": "https://github.com/daulet/tokenizers/releases/download/v1.27.0/libtokenizers.linux-amd64.tar.gz",
+        "sha256": "72556cdca798dd4ea7cdaba308e5f0d68a8cb93b67c96edf485b7a0edd7b07f4",
+        "member": "libtokenizers.a",
+        "member_sha256": "e6862b31745bb7d07980fcee70e49cd3b4318097609180f5d2d3fb394f305d50",
+        "dest": "lib/libtokenizers.a"
+      }
     }
   }
 }
diff --git a/internal/embeddings/local/assets_embed_linux.go b/internal/embeddings/local/assets_embed_linux.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bbffb69
--- /dev/null
+++ b/internal/embeddings/local/assets_embed_linux.go
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+//go:build localembed && linux
+
+package local
+
+import "embed"
+
+// Per-platform ONNX Runtime shared library (Linux). One binary can embed only
+// one platform's ORT lib (epic Open Concern #8). Both Linux arches ship the
+// same versioned file name — the arm64/x64 distinction is which artifact
+// `make assets` downloads into embedded/ (see assets/manifest.json), so a
+// single build-constrained file covers linux/arm64 and linux/amd64.
+//
+//go:embed embedded/libonnxruntime.so.1.26.0
+var embeddedORTLib embed.FS
+
+// ortLibFile is the base name of this platform's embedded ONNX Runtime shared
+// library, both inside embedded/ and after extraction to the runtime dir.
+const ortLibFile = "libonnxruntime.so.1.26.0"
diff --git a/tray.go b/tray.go
index 467a595..e0ab2d0 100644
--- a/tray.go
+++ b/tray.go
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+//go:build darwin
+
 package main
 
 /*
diff --git a/tray_stub.go b/tray_stub.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..10d8c1b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tray_stub.go
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+//go:build !darwin
+
+package main
+
+// setupTray is a no-op on platforms without the macOS status-bar integration
+// (tray.go is darwin-only Objective-C via CGo). Returns a no-op cleanup func.
+func (a *App) setupTray() func() {
+	return func() {}
+}