build-base seems broken
Metadata
Current evaluation
Seven-year-old question about snapcraft rejecting 'base: bare' with 'build-base: core18' via a confusing validation error. No maintainer response; validation was rewritten in snapcraft 8.x, where build-base is now required for bare bases, so the reported combination is now valid.
Suggested action: close stale
Reason: The issue is 2579 days old with 0 comments, no labels, and no maintainer engagement, and the quoted error comes from the pre-8.0 snapcraft validation that has since been rewritten. In current snapcraft, build-base is required for base: bare (confirmed in canonical/snapcraft#4972), so the rejected combination is now valid and the original problem is no longer reproducible in a supported version.
Impact:
15
Quick Win:
10.5
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
30
Confidence:
75
Support Request:
65
Issue body
Having:
base: bare
build-base: core18
Yields the error:
% snapcraft
Issues while validating snapcraft.yaml: must be one of 'base: <base> and type: <app|gadget|kernel|snapd> (without a build-base)' or 'type: base (without a base)'
Which doesn't seem to make sense. How to use build-base?
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
15
Quick Win:
10.5
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
30
Confidence:
75
Support Request:
65
|
close stale | Seven-year-old question about snapcraft rejecting 'base: bare' with 'build-base: core18' via a confusing validation error. No maintainer response; validation was rewritten in snapcraft 8.x, where build-base is now required for bare bases, so the reported combination is now valid. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
10
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
85
|
close stale | Reports a snapcraft.yaml validation error when combining base: bare and build-base: core18, asking for usage guidance. No maintainer response or comments in over seven years. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
15
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
85
|
close stale | Extremely outdated Snapcraft configuration question from ~7 years ago. The reported build-base syntax and validation error are obsolete due to significant API changes in modern Snapcraft versions. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
15
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
80
|
close stale | Unanswered usage question regarding snapcraft.yaml validation error for base: bare and build-base: core18 configuration. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
10
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
85
|
close stale | Snapcraft validation rejects build-base when paired with base bare, citing incorrect syntax rules. Issue remains open, unassigned, and inactive with zero comments. |
Update history
No update history recorded yet.
Related work
-
Related To:
canonical/snapcraft#4972
(confidence 70%)
Current snapcraft behavior: maintainer confirmed build-base is required for base: bare, which directly answers the original 'how to use build-base' question and shows the old validation error is obsolete.
-
Related To:
canonical/craft-application#761
(confidence 50%)
Post-rewrite discussion of base validation rules when build-base is set in the craft-application models that replaced the old snapcraft validation.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #4972 Cannot create a snap with base:bare in destructive mode | snapcraft | open | Snapcraft 8.3.2 fails with 'cannot determine build-for architecture' when building a base:bare snap in destructive mode without build-base. Maintainer confirmed build-base is required for bare and plans an earlier, clearer validation error. | |
| #1857019 cannot build snapd snap with build-base: core w/o base: core | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Closed without resolution or comments. The snapcraft TypeError when using build-base: core without base: core remains unresolved. | |
| #1860550 Defining base snap breaks snapping Subiquity | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Subiquity snap build with base: core18 leaves /snap/bin empty and snapd stuck seeding in ISO; works without base keyword. Reported ~6.5 years ago with zero comments; core18 is EOL and snapcraft 8.x rewrote base handling, so it is no longer applicable. | |
| #4737 Specifying nonstandard base results in strange error message | snapcraft | open | Snapcraft 8.x reports a misleading 'architectures keyword not supported for base foo' error when snapcraft.yaml declares an invalid base, instead of an invalid-base error. No maintainer response; only a Jira sync bot comment. | |
| #1752538 Building snap using base-18 is broken with 2.39 | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | snapcraft 2.39 broke base-18 builds on bionic due to shebang expansion and missing LD_LIBRARY_PATH. The report was closed without resolution, likely abandoned or superseded by newer base versions. | |
| #761 models/project.py: do not check for base when build-base: devel | craft-application | closed | Rejected. Maintainers kept the default base validation for all crafts. They advised overriding _validate_devel_base in snapcraft to support the gadget snap use case instead. | |
| #1862256 snapcraft should complain loudly when building base: core20 snap on i386 | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Closed as superseded. Improved architecture parsing in snapcraft now correctly rejects unsupported base-architecture combinations, addressing the original request without requiring explicit i386 core20 checks. | |
| #4562 Validity of `base` is not checked when using `--destructive-mode` | snapcraft | closed | Resolved in snapcraft 8.1 via craft-application 2.0 and canonical/craft-application#263. Base validity is now enforced during destructive-mode builds, blocking invalid or unreleased bases. | |
| #3729 parts: handle build base | snapcraft | merged | Merged into snapcraft/7.0. Implements build-base handling for parts, configuring the correct build environment by using the declared build-base or falling back to the package name for base-type projects. Approved and passed CI. | |
| #4246 Reported error message building base: core18 with newer snapcrafts is wrong | snapcraft | closed | Closed without resolution. A maintainer noted the error applies to any unsupported base like core17 and suggested improving the message to clarify base incompatibility instead of blaming the plugin. |