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publish complains about desktop file un-necessarily

View original Launchpad issue

Metadata

Project
snapcraft (launchpad)
Number
#1670162
Type
issue
State
open
Author
~popey
Labels
—
Created
Updated
Closed
—

Current evaluation

Snapcraft publish validation falsely requires a .desktop file when a snap uses the x11 plug, blocking a CLI utility from releasing to stable. Reported ~9.5 years ago with no maintainer response; the quoted error is from the old snapcraft 1.x publish flow.

Suggested action: close stale

Reason: The issue is ~9.5 years old (last activity 3451 days ago) with zero comments, no labels, and no maintainer interaction. The quoted error and workflow ('request a review on the snapcraft list', 'devmode in the edge or beta channels') are hallmarks of the pre-2.0 snapcraft publish validation, which has been replaced by the current architecture (repo now shows snapcraft/linters, snapcraft/commands, snapcraft/models). I could not verify the current lint code due to tool errors, so confidence is moderate.

Impact: 40 Quick Win: 24.0 Staleness: 96 Complexity: 40 Confidence: 55 Support Request: 25

Issue body

Publishing a snap which uses the x11 plug but is a command line utility, so doesn't have a .desktop file, I get the following:- Will need manual review...| Publishing checks failed. To release this to stable channel please request a review on the snapcraft list. Use devmode in the edge or beta channels to disable confinement. - desktop interfaces (x11) specified without meta/gui/*.desktop. Please provide a desktop file via setup/gui/*.desktop if using snapcraft or meta/gui/*.desktop otherwise. It should reference one of the 'apps' from your snapcraft/snap.yaml. Surely x11 related things can exist without desktop files?

Evaluation history

Date Model Scores Action Summary
qwen/qwen3.8-27b
Impact: 40
Quick Win: 24.0
Staleness: 96
Complexity: 40
Confidence: 55
Support Request: 25
close stale Snapcraft publish validation falsely requires a .desktop file when a snap uses the x11 plug, blocking a CLI utility from releasing to stable. Reported ~9.5 years ago with no maintainer response; the quoted error is from the old snapcraft 1.x publish flow.
qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b
Staleness: 98
Complexity: 15
Confidence: 90
Support Request: 20
close stale Snapcraft publishing checks incorrectly require a .desktop file when using the x11 plug for CLI utilities. Issue is completely inactive with no maintainer response or labels.
qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b
Staleness: 100
Complexity: 10
Confidence: 85
Support Request: 20
needs triage Snapcraft publish checks fail for CLI snaps using the x11 plug due to missing desktop files. The issue has no maintainer response, labels, or comments after nearly a decade and remains unassessed.
qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6
Staleness: 98
Complexity: 15
Confidence: 85
Support Request: 20
close stale Snapcraft publish checks incorrectly require a .desktop file for CLI utilities using the x11 plug. Unlabelled, zero comments, inactive for over 9 years.
qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6
Staleness: 98
Complexity: 25
Confidence: 85
Support Request: 40
close stale Snapcraft publish checks incorrectly require a desktop file for snaps using the x11 interface, even for CLI utilities. The report remains open with no comments or labels, requiring triage to relax the validation rule.

Update history

No update history recorded yet.

Related issues

Issue Project State Summary Similarity
#1727435 error message for desktop file problems does not include how to fix them snapcraft (launchpad) open Snapcraft raises the same generic exception for all desktop file errors (missing file, missing 'Desktop Entry', missing 'Exec' key) without explaining how to fix each. Suggests splitting the exception or adding a fix-hint field. Open since 2018, no comments, no maintainer response, unlabelled beyond bitesize/ui.
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