Pacmanfile

Pacmanfile is a tool that allows to declaratively define which packages you want to have installed via Arch Linux' Pacman, Yay or Paru to include packages from the AUR.

Installation

Pacmanfile is available in the AUR.

1. Run paru -S pacmanfile

Usage

1. Run pacmanfile help to get an overview of the existing commands and flags.

2. Run pacmanfile dump which dumps your currently explicitly installed packages into a pacmanfile.

   Alternatively, you can manually create a pacmanfile.txt file in your $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/pacmanfile directory (usually ~/.config/pacmanfile) which contains all the packages you want to have installed. Here's an example:

   alacritty
   base
   git
   linux
   linux-firmware
   zsh

   You can split the file up into any number of files that match pacmanfile*.txt (e.g. pacmanfile-extra.txt).

   You can add comments to pacmanfiles by starting any line with a #.

3. Run pacmanfile sync. This will remove any packages that you have installed which are not listed in pacmanfile*.txt and install any packages that you have not yet installed but that are listed in pacmanfile*.txt.

Limitations

Pacmanfile expects its packages to be installed explicitly. In case it complains about a package not being installed, you need to change that package's installation reason to explicit by running sudo pacman -D --asexplicit PACKAGE_NAME.

Currently, installing groups with pacmanfile is not supported. The workaround is to list all the members of the group individually in your file.