Snapcraft

Snapcraft is a packaging tool developed by Canonical for building Snaps, the universal Linux application packages used in the Snap ecosystem. Snaps are designed to run on Linux distributions that have the Snapd daemon and can be distributed through the Snap Store. Snapcraft enables developers to compose, build, and publish Snaps that contain all necessary runtimes and libraries, providing a self-contained packaging format.

A Snapcraft project is defined by a snapcraft.yaml file. The file describes parts, which specify build steps and sources; plugins, which integrate with languages or build systems; and apps, which expose executables to users. Snaps use confinement to limit access to the host system, with strict confinement as the common default and options such as devmode or classic for specialized scenarios. Snaps are versioned and can be released through channels such as stable, candidate, beta, and edge.

In terms of workflow, developers run snapcraft to build a Snap from a project, either locally on Linux or in a build service that provides clean environments. The resulting .snap file can be uploaded to the Snap Store, where it is published and distributed. End users install Snaps with the snap command and receive automatic updates.

Snapcraft features and ecosystem include support for multiple architectures and languages via plugins, interfaces and hooks for system integration, and the ability to perform updates and rollbacks. It is commonly used within the Ubuntu ecosystem and is supported by documentation and tooling available at snapcraft.io, with integration options for CI/CD pipelines.