X Package Builder

Developer tool for building, packaging, and maintaining packages for the X distribution and xpm.

Overview

xpkg is the package building companion to xpm. It reads build recipes (XBUILD files), fetches sources, compiles software in a controlled environment, and produces .xp packages ready for installation with xpm. It maintains backward compatibility with Arch Linux PKGBUILD files.

Think of it as the makepkg equivalent for the X ecosystem — written in pure Rust, with modern tooling and safety guarantees.

Key features

• Pure Rust — zero C dependencies, consistent with the xpm ecosystem
• XBUILD format — declarative TOML-based build recipes as a modern alternative to PKGBUILD shell scripts
• PKGBUILD compatibility — parse and build from Arch Linux PKGBUILD files
• Native .xp output — produces X Package archives (tar.zst) with .PKGINFO / .BUILDINFO / .MTREE
• Fakeroot builds — isolated build environment without requiring real root privileges
• Package linting — automated quality checks (dependencies, permissions, metadata, ELF analysis)
• Repository tooling — create and manage package repositories (xpkg repo-add, xpkg repo-remove)
• Source management — automatic download, verification, and extraction of source archives
• Reproducible builds — deterministic build metadata via .BUILDINFO

Installation

git clone https://github.com/xscriptordev/xpkg.git
cd xpkg
cargo build --release
sudo cp target/release/xpkg /usr/local/bin/

Usage

# Build a package from an XBUILD in the current directory
xpkg build

# Build from a PKGBUILD (Arch compatibility)
xpkg build --pkgbuild

# Build from a specific recipe file
xpkg build -f path/to/XBUILD

# Lint a package archive
xpkg lint <package.xp>

# Generate .SRCINFO equivalent from XBUILD
xpkg srcinfo

# Create a new XBUILD template
xpkg new <pkgname>

# Add a package to a repository database
xpkg repo-add <repo.db.tar.zst> <package.xp>

# Remove a package from a repository database
xpkg repo-remove <repo.db.tar.zst> <pkgname>

# Verify package integrity
xpkg verify <package.xp>

# Display package metadata
xpkg info <package.xp>

Global flags

Flag	Description
-c, --config <PATH>	Custom configuration file
-v, --verbose	Increase verbosity (-v, -vv, -vvv)
--no-confirm	Skip confirmation prompts
--no-color	Disable colored output
-d, --builddir <PATH>	Alternative build directory
-o, --outdir <PATH>	Output directory for built packages

XBUILD Format

XBUILD is a TOML-based build recipe format — declarative, type-safe, and easy to parse programmatically.

[package]
name = "example"
version = "1.0.0"
release = 1
description = "An example package"
url = "https://example.com"
license = ["GPL-3.0-or-later"]
arch = ["x86_64"]

[dependencies]
depends = ["glibc", "openssl"]
makedepends = ["cmake", "ninja"]
optdepends = ["docs: documentation files"]

[source]
urls = [
    "https://example.com/releases/example-1.0.0.tar.gz",
]
sha256sums = [
    "e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855",
]

[build]
prepare = """
cd example-1.0.0
patch -p1 < ../fix-build.patch
"""

build = """
cd example-1.0.0
cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr
ninja -C build
"""

package = """
cd example-1.0.0
DESTDIR=$PKGDIR ninja -C build install
"""

Configuration

Configuration file: ~/.config/xpkg/xpkg.conf (TOML format).

[options]
builddir = "/tmp/xpkg-build"
outdir = "."
sign = false
sign_key = ""
strip_binaries = true
compress = "zstd"
compress_level = 19

[environment]
makeflags = "-j$(nproc)"
cflags = "-march=x86-64 -O2 -pipe"
cxxflags = "-march=x86-64 -O2 -pipe"

[lint]
enabled = true
strict = false

Project structure

xpkg/
├── Cargo.toml                  # Workspace root
├── crates/
│   ├── xpkg/                   # Binary crate (CLI frontend)
│   │   └── src/
│   │       ├── main.rs         # Entry point, logging, config, dispatch
│   │       └── cli.rs          # clap CLI definition
│   └── xpkg-core/              # Library crate (core logic)
│       └── src/
│           ├── lib.rs           # Module root
│           ├── config.rs        # Configuration parser
│           ├── error.rs         # Error types
│           ├── recipe/          # Build recipe parsing (XBUILD + PKGBUILD)
│           ├── builder/         # Build orchestration and fakeroot
│           ├── archive/         # Package archive creation (.xp)
│           ├── metadata/        # .PKGINFO, .BUILDINFO, .MTREE generation
│           ├── lint/            # Package linting framework
│           └── repo/            # Repository database management
├── docs/
│   ├── XBUILD.md               # XBUILD format specification
│   ├── CLI.md                   # CLI reference
│   └── LINTING.md              # Linting rules documentation
├── etc/
│   └── xpkg.conf.example       # Example configuration
└── ROADMAP.md                   # Development roadmap

Relationship with xpm

xpkg and xpm form the two halves of the X packaging ecosystem:

Tool	Role	Analogy
xpm	Package manager — install, remove, upgrade, resolve dependencies	pacman
xpkg	Package builder — compile, package, lint, manage repositories	makepkg + repo-add + namcap

xpkg produces .xp packages that xpm installs. They share the same package format specification and metadata structures, but are independent binaries with separate codebases.

Roadmap

See ROADMAP.md for the full development roadmap.

Version	Milestone
v0.1.0	Functional CLI with configuration
v0.3.0	Recipe parsing and source management
v0.5.0	Build engine, metadata generation, and archive creation
v0.7.0	Package linting framework
v0.9.0	Repository tooling and xpm integration
v1.0.0	Benchmarked, tested, production-ready

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. See LICENSE.