Source-based: Downloads, extracts, and builds packages from source.
Dependency Management: Automatically handles build-time and runtime dependencies.
Atomic Installation: Uses a transactional approach to ensure system consistency.
Multi-system Build Support: Built-in support for Autotools, CMake, Meson, Rust (Cargo), and custom build scripts.
Cross-Compilation: Easily build packages for different architectures using cross-toolchains.
Repository Management: Create and manage local package repositories.

Quick Start

Building Depot

cargo build --release

When installing via Meson (meson install), Depot now generates and installs:

Shell completions for Bash, Zsh, and Fish
A depot(1) man page

Installing a Package

To install a package from a spec file:

depot install packages/zlib.toml

To install from a pre-built package archive:

depot install zlib-1.2.11-1-x86_64.depot.pkg.tar.zst

Command Reference

install <SPEC_OR_ARCHIVE>: Build and install a package.
- Resolves a full dependency plan first (binary repos and/or source specs), then executes in dependency order.
- Use --yes for non-interactive confirmation/provider selection.
- Use --dry-run to print the plan without performing work.
- Use --test-deps to include declared test dependencies in dependency installation.
- Binary package installs verify both checksums and detached minisign signatures (.sig).
remove <PACKAGE>: Remove an installed package.
build <SPEC>: Build a package and create an archive without installing.
- Use --install-deps to automatically install missing build/runtime/test dependencies before fetching/building.
- Use --cleanup-deps to remove dependencies auto-installed for the build after the command finishes; when combined with --install, runtime dependencies are kept.
- Missing test dependencies automatically disable test execution unless --test-deps or [install].test_deps = true is set.
update [PACKAGE ...]: Update installed packages from configured repositories.
- With no package names, updates every installed package that has a newer repo version available.
- Refreshes source repos first, compares installed package version/revision and UTC completion time against repo metadata, and installs any newly introduced runtime dependencies before applying updates.
check [DIR]: Recursively scan DIR (default .) for package specs and report newer upstream versions when they can be inferred from versioned source URLs.
- Supports git tag-style sources such as ...git#v$version.
- Also checks tag-style release URLs such as GitHub releases/download/$version/....
info <PACKAGE_OR_SPEC>: Show information about a package.
search <QUERY>: Search enabled source/binary repos by package name and provided features.
- Use --files to search binary repo metadata file lists.
owns <PATH>: Show which installed package owns a path.
list: List all installed packages.
repo owns <PATH>: Query binary repo metadata for path ownership.
repo create [DIR]: Create a repository database from a directory of packages.
repo index [DIR] [--subdir <NAME> ...]: Create/update depot-index.tsv at a source repo root for fast source lookup.
config: Show current configuration and overrides.

Package Specification

Packages are defined using TOML files. Here is a basic example:

[package]
name = "example"
version = "1.0.0"
description = "An example package"
homepage = "https://example.com"
license = "MIT"

[[source]]
url = "https://example.com/example-$version.tar.gz"
sha256 = "..."
extract_dir = "example-$version"

[build]
type = "autotools"
flags = { configure = ["--enable-feature"] }

[dependencies]
build = ["gcc", "make"]
runtime = ["libc"]
optional = ["bash-completion"]

LTO controls are available via build.flags:

ltoflags: exported as LTOFLAGS
use_lto: defaults to true; when enabled, ltoflags are appended to CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS, and LDFLAGS

Configuration

Depot can be configured via /etc/depot.d/ (or relative to the rootfs).

/etc/depot.d/build.toml: System-wide build overrides and flag appends.
/etc/depot.d/package.toml: Package-specific overrides.
/etc/depot.d/hooks/*.toml: Transaction hooks for install/update/remove pre/post phases.

Transaction Hooks

Hook files are TOML and use Starpack-like sections:

[hook]
name = "refresh-cache"

[when]
phase = "post"
operation = ["install", "update"]
packages = ["glibc", "linux*"]
paths = ["usr/lib/*"]
negation = ["usr/lib/debug/*"]

[exec]
command = "ldconfig"
needs_paths = true

needs_paths = true passes affected paths to the command via stdin (newline-separated).