PKGBUILDs

PKGBUILDs are shell-script based metadata and build instructions used in Arch Linux and related distributions to create packages from sources. They allow maintainers to define how a program is fetched, built, and installed, producing a package that can be managed by a package manager such as pacman.

A PKGBUILD is a plain text file named PKGBUILD. It declares variables such as pkgname, pkgver, pkgrel, arch, url, license, depends, makedepends, source, and sha256sums. It may also specify optional fields like provides, conflicts, replaces, optdepends, and arrays or functions such as prepare(), build(), check(), and package(). The file is designed to be executed by makepkg to perform the packaging steps.

The typical build process starts with makepkg reading the PKGBUILD and fetching sources listed in source, then validating their checksums. The prepare() function can apply patches or modify sources, build() compiles the software, check() runs tests if provided, and package() installs the built artifacts into a staging directory to create the final package file, usually named pkgname-pkgver-pkgrel-arch.pkg.tar.zst. During this process, metadata is written to .PKGINFO or the package database, and a .SRCINFO file can be generated for version control and repository use.

Usage typically involves running makepkg in the directory containing the PKGBUILD. Common options control dependency installation, signing, and cleaning, and may include -s, -i, or -c. PKGBUILDs emphasize reproducibility and security through explicit sources and checksums, and they are central to Arch Linux packaging workflows and community distributions that adopt the Arch Build System.