Pattern: AUR-Style Source-Only Remote

May 30, 2026 · View on GitHub

Goal: Community or team maintains pkg.lua in Git; users install with elda i and build locally - no published binaries required.

Architecture

[Maintainers] -> Git push -> packages/<pkg>/pkg.lua
                ↓
         CI signs index-v1.json.zst
                ↓
[Clients] elda sync -> elda i pkg (source lane)

Maintainer Steps

  1. Create pkgs repository with packages/<pkgname>/.
  2. Add recipes (elda rc add, hand-edit, or elda ci sub).
  3. On each release:
    • Pin repo_commit per package in the index.
    • Embed pkg_lua snapshot or reference per SPEC.md.
    • Sign index; upload index + .sig.
  4. Publish remote-metadata-v1.toml when rotating keys.

Client Steps

elda rmt add community=https://example.com/index-v1.json.zst \
  --trust pinned --trusted-key ed25519:... \
  --packages-url https://github.com/org/pkgs.git
elda sync community
elda i fsel

Compared to Arch AUR

AURElda source-only remote
PKGBUILD in Gitpkg.lua + optional build.lua
makepkg on clientElda build/stage/install
No official binary repoOptional later binhost on same remote

Optional: Interemote Instead

If upstream is already a Gentoo overlay, you may consume it as an interemote instead of mirroring recipes - see ../interemote-foreign-repos.md.

Docs