snapcraft does not allow vendor/platform patching of upstream sources (aka: add patch phase to lifecycle)
Metadata
Current evaluation
Abandoned and closed without implementation. The requested patch lifecycle phase was never added to snapcraft. Vendor patching remains unsupported, requiring manual workarounds or source forks.
Suggested action: —
No scores available.
Issue body
Snapcraft has no clean way to do vendor/platform patching of upstream sources in common plugins. E.g. the make and autotools plugins always init the upstream build systems without allowing for a hook to enable patching the provided source.
It should be clarified, if this is by design, requiring even minor adoptions or build fixes to be either upstreamed (which isnt always possible) or categorically requiring to maintain an upstream fork with its own VCS.
The workaround for bug 1548232 is an example. Because of it we essentially can use none of the snapcraft plugins directly on the project at all, but need use a wrapper Makefile run in the make plugin. Having a "patch" lifecycle phase between "fetch" and "build" would solve this.
Note that e.g. LibreOffice carries between 40 and 70 vendor patches:
https://git.launchpad.net/~libreoffice/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/tree/patches?h=ubuntu-xenial-5.1
https://git.launchpad.net/~libreoffice/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/tree/patches?h=ubuntu-precise-3.5
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 | — | — | Abandoned and closed without implementation. The requested patch lifecycle phase was never added to snapcraft. Vendor patching remains unsupported, requiring manual workarounds or source forks. | |
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
30
Quick Win:
19.5
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
35
Confidence:
65
Support Request:
45
|
close stale | 2012 feature request for a 'patch' lifecycle phase to apply vendor patches (e.g., LibreOffice's 40-70) before build. No labels, no comments, no activity for ~9.5 years. Capability is already achievable via override-pull/override-build hooks. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
70
Confidence:
80
Support Request:
10
|
needs triage | Feature request to add a patch lifecycle phase to snapcraft for vendor/platform source patching. Untriaged, with no maintainer comments or activity for over 9 years. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
65
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Feature request to add a patch phase to Snapcraft's lifecycle for vendor patching. Unaddressed for over nine years with zero maintainer comments or labels. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
45
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
5
|
close stale | Feature request to add a patch lifecycle phase to snapcraft for vendor source patching. Unlabelled, zero comments, inactive for over nine years. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
5
|
close stale | Proposes adding a patch lifecycle phase to snapcraft for vendor and platform source patching between fetch and build. Untriaged, zero comments, and inactive for over nine years. |
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