AUR helpers

Warning: AUR helpers are not officially supported by Arch Linux. It is recommended to become familiar with the manual build process in order to be prepared to troubleshoot problems on one's own.

AUR helpers are written to automate certain tasks for the Arch User Repository.

Uploading

• aur4_import.sh — Splits a package from a git repository with multiple packages, adding/updating .SRCINFO for every commit.
• aur4_make_submodule.sh — Replaces a package in a bigger git repository with an AUR 4 submodule, including .SRCINFO.
• aurpublish — Manage AUR packages as git subtrees. The generation of .SRCINFO files, PKGBUILD checking and the creation of a per package commit message template is left to the git hooks in the same repo.

Build and search

Note: This list does not include details on functionality or maintainer status. See #Comparison table.

This is a list of helper utilities that search, download and/or build packages.

• aura — A package manager for Arch Linux written in Haskell. (Forum page)

https://github.com/aurapm/aura || aura-bin^AUR (binary)

• auracle — An AUR client written in C++.

https://github.com/falconindy/auracle || auracle-git^AUR

• aurel — Search, vote and download AUR packages from Emacs. (Forum page)

https://github.com/alezost/aurel || aurel-git^AUR

• aurget — pacman-like interface to the AUR, without wrapping pacman commands.

https://github.com/pbrisbin/aurget/ || aurget^AUR

• aurman — AUR helper written in python

https://github.com/polygamma/aurman || aurman-git^AUR

• aurquery — Caching wrapper around the AUR's RPC interface using the python3-aur library.

http://xyne.archlinux.ca/projects/python3-aur || python3-aur^AUR

• aurutils — Helper tools for the AUR. (Forum page)

https://github.com/AladW/aurutils || aurutils^AUR

• bauerbill — Powerpill/pacman extension with support for building packages from ABS and AUR. (Forum page)

http://xyne.archlinux.ca/projects/bauerbill || bauerbill^AUR

• burgaur — A front-end for cower written in Python.

https://github.com/m45t3r/burgaur || burgaur^AUR

• cower — AUR search and download agent written in C, which also checks for updates and package dependencies. (Forum page)

https://github.com/falconindy/cower || cower^AUR

• naaman — An AUR helper written in Python 3.

https://github.com/enckse/naaman || naaman^AUR

• pacaur — An AUR helper that minimizes user interaction. (Forum page)

https://github.com/rmarquis/pacaur || pacaur^AUR

• pacget — A wrapper around pacaur to mimic yaourt's search feature.

https://github.com/neurobin/pacget || pacget^AUR

• packer — Wrapper for pacman and the AUR. (Forum page)

https://github.com/keenerd/packer || packer^AUR

• pbget — Retrieve source files from the Arch SVN and CVS web interface, the AUR, and the ABS rsync server.

http://xyne.archlinux.ca/projects/pbget || pbget^AUR

• pikaur — Pacman wrapper written in Python.

https://github.com/actionless/pikaur || pikaur-git^AUR

• PKGBUILDer — An AUR helper with dependency support written in Python 3.

https://github.com/Kwpolska/pkgbuilder || pkgbuilder^AUR

• prm — An AUR and ABS helper.

https://git.fleshless.org/u/fbt/prm/ || PKGBUILD

• repoctl — Tool to help manage local repositories (AUR support).

https://github.com/cassava/repoctl || repoctl^AUR

• spinach — An AUR helper written in Bash

http://www.floft.net/code/spinach/ || spinach^AUR

• trizen — A wrapper for the AUR written in Perl.

https://github.com/trizen/trizen || trizen^AUR

• wrapaur — A pacman and AUR wrapper written in bash.

|| wrapaur^AUR

• yaah — Yet another AUR helper

https://bitbucket.org/the_metalgamer/yaah || yaah^AUR

• yaourt — A wrapper for the AUR and regular packages.

https://archlinux.fr/yaourt-en || yaourt^AUR

• yay — AUR helper written in Go.

https://github.com/Jguer/yay || yay^AUR or yay-bin^AUR (binary)

Maintenance

• pkgbuild-watch — Looks for changes on the upstream web pages

http://kmkeen.com/pkgbuild-watch || pkgbuild-watch^AUR

• pkgbuildup — Helps AUR package maintainers automatically update PKGBUILD files. Supports a template variable syntax.

https://github.com/fasheng/pkgbuildup || pkgbuildup-git^AUR

• pkgcheck — Uses rules in PKGBUILDs to parse upstream version information or looks for changes by checksumming the web page

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=162816 || Repository: GitHub

• pkgoutofdate — Parses the source URL from PKGBUILDs and tries to find new versions of packages by incrementing the version number and sending requests to the web server

https://github.com/anatol/pkgoutofdate || pkgoutofdate-git^AUR

Libraries

• haskell-archlinux — Library to access the AUR and package metadata from the Haskell programming language

http://hackage.haskell.org/package/archlinux || haskell-archlinux^AUR

• python3-aur — Python 3 modules for accessing AUR package information and automating AUR interactions.

http://xyne.archlinux.ca/projects/python3-aur || python3-aur^AUR

Graphical

• Aarchup — Fork of archup. Has the same options as archup plus a few other features. For differences between both please check changelog.

https://github.com/aericson/aarchup/ || aarchup^AUR

• Argon — Graphical frontend to pacaur, featuring package installation, removal, and updating; and update notifications for both official repository and AUR packages.

https://github.com/14mRh4X0r/arch-argon || argon^AUR

• pamac — A DBus daemon and Gtk3 frontend for libalpm written in Vala.

https://github.com/manjaro/pamac/ || pamac-aur^AUR

• PkgBrowser — Application for searching and browsing Arch packages, showing details on selected packages.

https://bitbucket.org/kachelaqa/pkgbrowser/wiki/Home || pkgbrowser^AUR

Comparison table

The columns have the following meaning:

• Secure: does not source the PKGBUILD at all by default; or, alerts the user and offers the opportunity to inspect the PKGBUILD manually before it is sourced. Some helpers are known to source PKGBUILDs before the user can inspect them, allowing malicious code to be executed. Optional means that there is a command line flag or configuration option to prevent the automatic sourcing before viewing.
• Clean build: does not export new variables that can prevent a successful build process.
• Reliable parser: ability to handle complex packages by using the provided metadata (RPC/.SRCINFO) instead of PKGBUILD parsing, such as aws-cli-git^AUR.
• Reliable solver: ability to correctly solve and build complex dependency chains, such as ros-lunar-desktop^AUR.
• Split packages: ability to correctly build and install split packages independently, such as python-pyalsaaudio^AUR and python2-pyalsaaudio^AUR.
• Git clone: uses git clones (instead of downloading tarballs which is deprecated).
• Maintained: A project is considered maintained if it fullfills all of the following criteria:

– it is not discontinued by the author in favor of a different project or otherwise;

– it has seen general activity in the last 6 months;

– existing issues on security and clean build (as described above) have been worked on in the last 6 months.

• Syntax: P stands for Pacman-like, S for specific.

Name	Written In	Maintained	Secure	Clean build	Reliable parser	Reliable solver	Split packages	Git clone	Shell completion	Syntax	Specificity
aura	Haskell	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No [1]	No	bash, zsh	P	Downgrade, ABS, powerpill support, multilingual, requires ArchHaskell
auracle	C++	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes	Yes	N/A	No	N/A	S	No automatic builds
aurel	Emacs Lisp	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes	N/A	N/A	No	N/A	S	Emacs integration, no automatic builds
aurget	Bash	No	Optional	Yes	No	No	No [2]	No	bash, zsh	P	sort by votes
aurman	Python	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	bash	P	batch interaction, fetch pgp keys, sort by popularity, deep search
aurutils	Bash/C	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	zsh	S	vifm, PCRE, local repository, package signing, systemd-nspawn support, sort by votes/popularity
bauerbill	Python	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	bash, zsh	P/S	Trust management, ABS support, extends Powerpill
burgaur	Python/C	No [3]	Optional, with mc	Yes	No	No	No	No	None	P	Wrapper for cower
cower	C	No [4]	Yes	N/A	Yes	N/A	N/A	No	bash/zsh	S	No automatic builds, regex support, sort by votes/popularity
naaman	Python	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	bash	P/S	-
pacaur	Bash/C	No [5]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	bash, zsh	P/S	multilingual, sort by votes/popularity, batch interaction
packer	Bash	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	None	P	-
pbget	Python	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes	N/A	N/A	Yes	None	S	No automatic builds
pikaur	Python	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	bash, fish, zsh	P/S	dynamic users, sort by votes/popularity, batch interaction
PKGBUILDer	Python	Yes	Optional	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial [6]	Yes	None	P	Automatic builds by default, use -F to disable; multilingual
prm	Bash	No	Yes [7]	N/A	Yes	N/A	N/A	Yes	None	S	No automatic builds, ABS support
repoctl	Go	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes [8]	N/A	N/A	No	zsh	S	No automatic builds, local repository support
spinach	Bash	No	Yes [9]	Yes	No	No	No	No	None	S	-
trizen	Perl	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes [10]	Yes	Yes [11]	Yes [12]	bash, zsh	P	AUR comments
wrapaur	Bash	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	None	S	Mirror updates, print news and AUR comments
yaah	Bash	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes	N/A	N/A	Optional	bash	S	No automatic builds
yaourt	Bash/C	No	No (yaourt -Si) [13] [14]	No [15]	No	No [16]	No [17]	Optional	bash, zsh, fish	P	Backup, ABS support, AUR comments, multilingual
yay	Go	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	bash, zsh, fish	P	sort by votes, batch interaction

Note:

• Pacman 4.2. introduced architecture specific fields. [18] AurJson merges these fields to their generic counterparts, such as depends and makedepends: FS#48796. Helpers relying on the RPC may use the below workarounds to retrieve dependencies:

– Retrieve specific fields from .SRCINFO: bauerbill^AUR [19], pkgbuilder^AUR [20]

– Strip the lib32- prefix on i686 systems: aurutils^AUR [21], pacaur^AUR [22], trizen^AUR [23]

• The RPC does not support querying versioned packages: FS#54906. pacaur^AUR and aurman-git^AUR implement this manually.