charm artifacts from reactive plugin are missing valuable build metadata
Metadata
Current evaluation
Reactive charms built via charmcraft's reactive plugin lack the .build.manifest file that charm-tools generates, and manifest.yaml omits charm-tools version. Triaged (Status: Triaged, Type: Bug); internal ticket CHARMCRAFT-654 created 2025-09-17; no code change yet.
Suggested action: keep open
Reason: The issue is labelled Status: Triaged and Type: Bug, and a Jira ticket (CHARMCRAFT-654) was created on 2025-09-17, showing active internal tracking. The reactive plugin still invokes `charm build` via subprocess (charmcraft/parts/plugins/_reactive.py) and the Manifest model (charmcraft/models/manifest.py) has no charm-tools version field, so neither part of the request is implemented. It is a real bug/feature gap, not a support question, and should remain open.
Impact:
40
Quick Win:
24.0
Staleness:
45
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
70
Support Request:
10
Issue body
when a reactive charm is built with `charm build .` the resulting artifact has a file in the top level with the title `.build.manifest`
This file is generated by the `charm` snap and lists the commit hash for each charm layer, installed pip from the wheelhouse
1) It seems when i build a reactive charm using the charmcraft reactive plugin, this file is missing from the `.charm` artifact.
2) it would also be REALLY nice if the `manifest.yaml` generated would also list the `charmtool-version` used to build the charm.
the plugin can determine this version by running `/snap/bin/charm version --format json` and extracting the output
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
40
Quick Win:
24.0
Staleness:
45
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
70
Support Request:
10
|
keep open | Reactive charms built via charmcraft's reactive plugin lack the .build.manifest file that charm-tools generates, and manifest.yaml omits charm-tools version. Triaged (Status: Triaged, Type: Bug); internal ticket CHARMCRAFT-654 created 2025-09-17; no code change yet. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
85
Complexity:
25
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
5
|
keep open | Reactive charm plugin omits .build.manifest from .charm artifacts and lacks charmtool-version metadata. Issue is triaged as a bug but has been inactive for over a year. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
70
Complexity:
20
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
10
|
keep open | Reactive charm plugin omits .build.manifest and charmtool-version from artifacts. Triaged bug awaiting implementation after contributor identified file location during build. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
85
Complexity:
45
Confidence:
70
Support Request:
10
|
keep open | Reactive charm plugin omits .build.manifest from output artifacts and lacks charmtool version metadata. Triaged as a bug, awaiting implementation. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
90
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
75
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Reactive plugin omits .build.manifest from charm artifacts and excludes charmtool version. Triaged. Internal Jira ticket CHARMCRAFT-654 created. Last activity 194 days ago. |
Update history
No update history recorded yet.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #2502 Fix missing build metadata in reactive charm artifacts | charmcraft | open | Adds .build.manifest preservation and charmtool_version to manifest.yaml for reactive charm builds. Fixes #872. Inactive 263 days, 0 reviewer approvals, several CI checks failing (snap-tests, Conventional Commits policy). | |
| #693 Charms packed using the reactive plugin shows dirty version | charmcraft | closed | Fixed by modifying the reactive plugin to stop removing charmcraft.yaml before building. This prevented git describe from incorrectly marking packed charm versions as dirty. | |
| #1816 Reactive charm built with charmcraft 3.x is missing options from the included layers and is broken | charmcraft | open | Reactive charms built with charmcraft 3.x lose config.yaml options from included layers; 2.x works. Maintainer acknowledged and plans a rewrite of the reactive build logic; reporter confirmed still broken on 3.4.3 and is willing to wait. | |
| #2194 Builds of charm using reactive plugin produces different config option | charmcraft | closed | Closed without resolution. Maintainers acknowledged the charmcraft 3 reactive plugin incorrectly strips deprecated config options, but no fix was implemented. | |
| #420 Missing Charmcraft artifact in Charm Build | fetch-service | closed | Fixed in PR #465. The go-module-git inspector overrode the charmcraft inspector, suppressing the charmcraft artifact. Support for .yml extensions was explicitly rejected. |