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Cannot automatically build a part from a Debian package source tree

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Metadata

Project
snapcraft (launchpad)
Number
#1918968
Type
issue
State
open
Author
~racb
Labels
—
Created
Updated
Closed
—

Current evaluation

Wishlist request (2020) from ~racb for a 'deb' part plugin that builds a deb from a Debian source tree's debian/ directory and exposes it to stage/build-packages; no maintainer response, labels, or comments after 2029 days.

Suggested action: needs triage

Reason: The issue is an unlabelled wishlist item with 0 comments and no maintainer response, so it has never actually been assessed — that meets the needs_triage bar regardless of its age. I verified the feature is still unimplemented: no DebPlugin or 'debsnap'/'sbuild' handling exists in snapcraft, and craft-parts' plugin reference list (docs/reference/plugins.rst) contains no deb plugin. It remains a valid request (not stale/obsolete), but is a niche workflow, and the hard part is architectural — making a locally built deb resolvable by other parts' stage-packages — plus decisions the reporter never addressed (plugin home in craft-parts vs snapcraft, multiple binary packages per source package, build-environment/chroot needs, version pinning). Those open design questions plus an empty issue-comment history keep actionability and confidence moderate.

Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot

Impact: 30 Quick Win: 4 Complexity: 65 Confidence: 72 Actionability: 35

Issue body

This is a Wishlist request. I have a source tree that supports building a Debian package. It has a debian/ directory with debian/control, debian/rules, etc. I can make a deb using "sbuild" or "debuild" and so on. I'd like to make a snap out of this. A straightforward way to do this is to use "stage-packages" and include the deb I'm building. However, I'd like the resulting snap to match my source tree, which isn't necessarily the same as the deb that's available in an apt repository being fetched from "stage-packages". One way to do achieve this is to build the deb locally first and then use the new package-repositories feature. However, this seems suboptimal because I have to write a wrapper that builds the deb, prepares a local apt repository, modifies snapcraft.yaml to point to it, and then calls snapcraft. And then facilities like Launchpad snap recipes become unavailable to me because they expect to be able to just run "snapcraft" and there's no mechanism to call my wrapper instead. It would be nice if snapcraft had a "deb" part plugin that does all of this for me. It would expect to find a debian/ directory, build the deb as appropriate, and make it available for use in stage-packages/build-packages as normal.

Evaluation history

Date Model Scores Action Summary
stealth/space-bunny-alpha
Impact: 30
Quick Win: 4
Complexity: 65
Confidence: 72
Actionability: 35
needs triage Wishlist request (2020) from ~racb for a 'deb' part plugin that builds a deb from a Debian source tree's debian/ directory and exposes it to stage/build-packages; no maintainer response, labels, or comments after 2029 days.
qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b
Impact: 30
Quick Win: 10
Complexity: 60
Confidence: 70
Actionability: 80
needs triage Feature request for a deb part plugin to build Debian packages from source trees containing debian/ directories
qwen/qwen3.8-27b
Impact: 35
Quick Win: 16
Staleness: 88
Complexity: 55
Confidence: 65
Support Request: 15
needs triage Wishlist request for a snapcraft 'deb' part plugin that builds a Debian package from a source tree's debian/ directory and exposes it to stage-packages. Open since 2019 with no labels, no comments, and no maintainer response.
qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b
Staleness: 98
Complexity: 35
Confidence: 85
Support Request: 10
close stale Feature request for a snapcraft deb part plugin to automatically build Debian packages from source trees. Unlabeled, zero comments, inactive for over 5 years.
qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b
Staleness: 98
Complexity: 60
Confidence: 85
Support Request: 10
close stale Wishlist request for a snapcraft deb part plugin to build Debian packages from source trees. Unlabelled, zero comments, inactive for over five years.
qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6
Staleness: 98
Complexity: 65
Confidence: 90
Support Request: 10
close stale Wishlist request for a snapcraft 'deb' part plugin to build directly from a Debian source tree. Unaddressed for over 5 years with no maintainer interaction.

Update history

Date Change
created

Related work

  • Related To: snapcraft#5814 (confidence 55%)

    Commit 8f56d299d 'feat(plugins): add kernel and initrd plugins (#5814)' added the kernel plugin whose 'kernel-ubuntu-debian-package' option builds through debian/rules and requires a valid debian/ directory (docs/reference/plugins/kernel_plugin.rst:151-155, tests/spread/plugins/craft-parts/kernel-deb). That covers the same underlying need, but only for kernel snaps, so this general request is not resolved by it.

Related issues

No related issues found above the similarity threshold.