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For the complete documentation index, see llms.txt. This page is also available as Markdown.

Custom Repositories

Third party and self hosted repositories

soarpkgs is the only repository PkgForge publishes, and Soar enables it by default. Soar is not tied to it, though. Any repository that publishes an index Soar can read works the same way, whether somebody else runs it or you do.

Adding one

soar repo add myrepo "https://example.com/metadata-x86_64-linux.json"
soar sync
soar list myrepo

soar repo also has update, remove and list. Everything it does can be written straight into ~/.config/soar/config.toml instead:

[[repositories]]
name = "myrepo"
url  = "https://example.com/metadata-x86_64-linux.json"
Key
Default
Notes

name

required

How you refer to the repository, as in soar list myrepo.

url

required

The index. Must be https.

pubkey

none

Base64 minisign public key.

signature_verification

on when pubkey is set

Verify the index signature before using it.

enabled

true

Leave a repository configured without syncing it.

desktop_integration

true

Whether packages from here get desktop entries and icons.

sync_interval

3h

Also accepts always and never.

A repository without a pubkey is unsigned, and Soar cannot tell you whether its index is the one its author published. Prefer one that signs, and pass the key when you add it.

Running your own

An index is a JSON file, so hosting one is a matter of putting it somewhere reachable over https. Soar accepts:

  • .json, the format described in metadata

  • .sdb, the SQLite form, which soar json2db produces from the JSON

  • either of those compressed with zstd

The SQLite form is worth generating if the repository is large, since Soar reads it directly instead of importing it on every sync.

The easiest way to produce one is the way soarpkgs does. Keep a tree of declarative package definitions, run sbuild meta over it per host, and publish the result:

Nothing requires that, however. The index is a plain format, and any generator that emits it will do.

Signing

Sign each published file with minisign and publish the .sig beside it, at the same URL with .sig appended:

Then hand out the public key with the repository, so users can add it:

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