YAP — Yet Another Packager

YAP — Yet Another Packager

YAP builds native packages for multiple GNU/Linux distributions from a single PKGBUILD specification. Write your package once; get .deb, .rpm, .apk, and .pkg.tar.zst out. All builds run in isolated OCI containers (Docker or Podman).

Features

• Multi-format output: DEB (Debian/Ubuntu), RPM (Fedora/RHEL/Rocky/openSUSE), APK (Alpine), TAR.ZST (Arch)
• Container isolation: reproducible builds, no host contamination, Docker and Podman supported
• PKGBUILD-based: familiar Arch Linux syntax extended with distribution and architecture overrides
• Cross-compilation: build for a different architecture than your host
• Dependency-aware builds: sequential by default; opt-in parallel topo-sort via --parallel
• Package signing: APK RSA + DEB/RPM/Pacman GPG (no gpg binary required)
• SBOM generation: CycloneDX 1.5 and SPDX 2.3 sidecars
• Publishing: yap publish uploads DEB/RPM (and APK/Pacman as raw files) to an OpenArtifact repository
• Per-format compression: zstd/gzip/xz for DEB and RPM
• Changelog support: changelog PKGBUILD field renders to native format per distro
• Pacman scriptlets: full 6-hook lifecycle (pre/post install/upgrade/remove)
• Structured logging: slog-based, tree rendering for long lines, zero external UI deps

Installation

One-liner (Linux/macOS, amd64/arm64):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/M0Rf30/yap/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

Pin a version or install only one tool:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/M0Rf30/yap/main/scripts/install.sh \

| sh -s -- --version v2.1.3 --tool yap

Manual download:

wget https://github.com/M0Rf30/yap/releases/latest/download/yap_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz

tar -xzf yap_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz sudo mv yap /usr/local/bin/ yap version

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/M0Rf30/yap.git

cd yap make build sudo mv yap /usr/local/bin/

Requires Docker or Podman:

# Docker

sudo systemctl enable --now docker && sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Podman

sudo systemctl enable --now podman

Quick start

1. Project structure

Create yap.json:

{

"name": "My Package", "description": "A sample package built with YAP", "buildDir": "/tmp/yap-build", "output": "artifacts", "projects": [ { "name": "my-package" } ] }

2. PKGBUILD

Create my-package/PKGBUILD:

pkgname=my-package

pkgver=1.0.0 pkgrel=1 pkgdesc="My awesome application" arch=('x86_64') license=('GPL-3.0') url="https://github.com/user/my-package" makedepends=('gcc' 'make') source=("https://github.com/user/my-package/archive/v${pkgver}.tar.gz") sha256sums=('SKIP')

build() { cd "${srcdir}/${pkgname}-${pkgver}" make }

package() { cd "${srcdir}/${pkgname}-${pkgver}" install -Dm755 my-package "${pkgdir}/usr/bin/my-package" install -Dm644 README.md "${pkgdir}/usr/share/doc/${pkgname}/README.md" }

3. Build

# Auto-detect host distro from /etc/os-release

yap build .

Specific distribution

yap build ubuntu-jammy . yap build fedora-38 /path/to/project yap build --cleanbuild --no-makedeps ubuntu-jammy .

4. Output

artifacts/

├── my-package_1.0.0-1_amd64.deb ├── my-package-1.0.0-1.x86_64.rpm ├── my-package-1.0.0-r1.apk └── my-package-1.0.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Project configuration (yap.json)

{

"name": "My Multi-Package Project", "description": "Project description", "buildDir": "/tmp/yap-builds", "output": "dist", "projects": [ { "name": "package-one", "install": true }, { "name": "package-two" } ] }

Build ordering between packages comes from the install flag and each PKGBUILD's depends/makedepends — there is no yap.json-level depends field. See yap.schema.json for the complete spec.

Editor validation (JSON Schema)

A JSON Schema for yap.json ships at the repo root: yap.schema.json. It documents every supported field (compression, signing, repos, SBOM, cross-compilation, etc.). Reference it from your yap.json for autocomplete and inline validation in editors that support JSON Schema:

{

"$schema": "https://www.schemastore.org/yap.json", "name": "My Multi-Package Project", "...": "..." }

The schema is published on SchemaStore, so editors (VS Code, JetBrains, Neovim, …) validate any yap.json by filename automatically — no $schema line required.

PKGBUILD extensions

Distribution-specific variables

Use __ (double underscore) to override any variable per distribution. Priority (highest wins):

pkgdesc="My application"

pkgdescdebian="My application for Debian/Ubuntu" pkgdescubuntu_noble="My application optimized for Ubuntu 24.04"

makedepends=('gcc' 'make') makedependsapt=('build-essential' 'cmake') makedependsyum=('gcc-c++' 'cmake3') makedepends__ubuntu_noble=('build-essential' 'cmake' 'pkg-config' 'libtool')

Architecture-specific variables

depends=('glibc' 'gcc')

depends_x86_64=('glibc' 'gcc' 'lib32-glibc') depends_aarch64=('glibc' 'gcc' 'aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc')

source=('https://example.com/generic-source.tar.gz') source_x86_64=('https://example.com/x86_64-optimized.tar.gz') source_aarch64=('https://example.com/aarch64-source.tar.gz')

sha256sums=('generic_hash') sha256sums_x86_64=('x86_64_specific_hash') sha256sums_aarch64=('aarch64_specific_hash')

Supported architectures: x86_64, i686, aarch64, armv7h, armv6h, armv5, ppc64, ppc64le, s390x, mips, mipsle, riscv64, pentium4, any.

Checksum types

Supported (strongest to fastest): b2sums, sha512sums, sha384sums, sha256sums, sha224sums, cksums.

# BLAKE2b (recommended)

b2sums=('2f240f2a3d2f8d8f...')

CRC32 (format: checksum filesize)

cksums=('1234567890 2048576')

Changelog

changelog=CHANGELOG.md

• DEB: usr/share/doc/ /changelog.Debian.gz (Lintian-compliant)
• RPM: native %changelog entries embedded in package metadata
• Pacman: .CHANGELOG in the archive
• APK: ignored (no Alpine convention)

Pacman scriptlets

pre_install()  { echo "Before install"; }

post_install() { systemctl daemon-reload; } pre_upgrade() { systemctl stop myservice; } post_upgrade() { systemctl start myservice; } pre_remove() { systemctl disable myservice; } post_remove() { systemctl daemon-reload; }

Emitted to .install only when at least one hook is defined. pre/post_upgrade fall back to pre/post_install when absent.

Package manager-specific fields

# DEB

section=utils priority=optional

RPM

group="Applications/System" requires_pre=('shadow-utils')

APK

maintainer="John Doe "

Supported distributions

Model Context Protocol (MCP)

YAP ships a companion yap-mcp binary that exposes the same build pipeline over the Model Context Protocol, so any MCP-compatible LLM client (Claude Desktop, opencode, Cursor, Zed, Continue, Goose, …) can drive yap directly.

Quickstart (release binary):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/M0Rf30/yap/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

then add { "mcpServers": { "yap": { "command": "yap-mcp" } } } to your client config

Or pull the standalone OCI image (also listed on the MCP registry as io.github.M0Rf30/yap):

docker pull ghcr.io/m0rf30/yap-mcp:latest

client config:

{ "mcpServers": { "yap": { "command": "docker",

"args": ["run","-i","--rm","ghcr.io/m0rf30/yap-mcp:latest"] } } }

Claude Code plugin (server + skill in one)

/plugin marketplace add M0Rf30/claude-plugins

/plugin install yap@M0Rf30

Smithery

npx @smithery/cli install io.github.M0Rf30/yap --client claude

The full tool surface, per-client config snippets, security model, and troubleshooting are in [`MCP.md`](MCP.md). The shipped skill card at skills/yap/SKILL.md follows the Anthropic Agent Skills layout and gives agents a workflow cheatsheet for free. Distribution channels and release steps are documented in [`PUBLISHING.md`](PUBLISHING.md).

CLI reference

Commands

yap build [distro[-release]] <path>   # Build packages (distro auto-detected if omitted)

yap zap [distro] # Clean build environment yap prepare [distro[-release]] # Prepare host build environment yap pull # Pull pre-built container images yap install # Install a built artifact yap publish [artifact-or-dir]... # Upload built packages to an OpenArtifact repository yap graph [path] # Show dependency graph yap list-distros # List supported distributions yap status # Show host status and runtime detection yap version # Show ver