Tauri "webkit2gtk ... not found" missing system deps on Linux in CI

Tauri's Linux webview links against WebKitGTK via pkg-config. On a fresh runner the -dev packages are absent, so the build of webkit2gtk-sys fails before any Rust compiles.

What this error means

cargo/tauri build fails with "The system library webkit2gtk-4.1 required by crate webkit2gtk-sys was not found" or a pkg-config error for libsoup/javascriptcoregtk.

cargo

error: failed to run custom build command for `webkit2gtk-sys v2.0.1`
  The system library `webkit2gtk-4.1` required by crate `webkit2gtk-sys`
  was not found. The PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable is not set.

Common causes

WebKitGTK dev packages are not installed

pkg-config cannot find webkit2gtk-4.1 because the -dev library is missing from the runner image.

Other Tauri Linux deps also missing

Tauri also needs libsoup, librsvg, libappindicator, and GTK dev headers; any missing one fails the build command.

How to fix it

Install Tauri's Linux dependencies

Add the documented system packages before building on Ubuntu.

Terminal

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libgtk-3-dev \
  librsvg2-dev libappindicator3-dev patchelf

Match the package to the Tauri webview version

Tauri v1 uses webkit2gtk-4.0; Tauri v2 uses 4.1. Install the one your version expects.