declaro - a simple declarative wrapper for any package manager

Why This Project Exists

• The Problem: Desktop Linux systems accumulate unnecessary packages over time — apps installed briefly, forgotten, and left to clutter your system. This is a nightmare for small disks and system hygiene (run pacman -Qq | wc -l to see how many packages you have installed).

• Why Current Solutions Fall Short: Tools like NixOS are powerful but overly complex for users who don’t need complete reproducibility - just a clutter-free system.

• Our Solution: A powerful declarative package manager wrapper that:

  • Lets you define a clean "reset state" for your system
  • Provides tools to manage and reset your system back to that declarative state
  • Forces you to explicitly define what you want to keep, rather than what you want to remove

Usage

Define Your Clean System State

First, start by generating the packages list from the current list of explicitly installed packages:

declaro generate

This will create the packages.list file in /etc/declaro/packages.list (you can change this location in the config file). Then, you may edit this file either manually:

sudo nano /etc/declaro/packages.list

Or by running:

declaro edit

Here, you can add packages you want to keep permanently, or delete packages you no longer require. The packages.list file format is one package per line, with optional comments:

# Creative Software
gimp
audacity # This one is for audio
blender

# Programming
bash
gcc
neovim # My favorite text editor

Main Commands

• declaro clean: Removes all stray packages (installed packages not declared in packages.list) and installs all missing packages (packages declared in packages.list but not installed)
• declaro diff: Shows the difference between your current system and your packages.list
• declaro edit: Opens packages.list in your default editor (defined by $VISUAL)
• declaro export <file>: Export the configurations and packages.list to a tar.gz file
• declaro import <source>: Import a declared state from a .tar.gz file or Git repository
• declaro status <pkg1> [pkg2...]: Shows the status of packages

Configuration

declaro was written to be package manager agnostic. As such, integrating with a package manager is as simple as defining three functions in a config file at /etc/declaro/config.sh. Consider our apt-config.sh for Ubuntu systems:

# Command to uninstall a package and its dependencies (no confirm/user prompts)
UNINSTALL_COMMAND () {
  sudo apt-get remove $@ -y
}
# Command to install a package and its dependencies (no confirm/user prompts)
INSTALL_COMMAND () {
  sudo apt-get install $@ -y
}
# Command to list all manually/explicitely installed packages
LIST_COMMAND () {
  apt-mark showmanual
}

Available Configurations

Currently, we provide config files for apt, dnf, pacman, pacman-paru and pacman-yay package managers, and we will keep adding more as we go. After installing, you can find these configs at:

• /usr/local/share/declaro/config
• /usr/share/declaro/config
• Or browse the repository here

Configurations for non-supported distros

If your package manager has no configuration available, you can:

1. Copy the template config file:

sudo install -Dm644 /usr/local/share/declaro/config/template-config.sh /etc/declaro/config.sh

2. Edit the functions to match your package manager's commands.

sudo nano /etc/declaro/config.sh

If you would like to help us and add official support for your package manager, please open an issue or a pull request.

Installation

Automatic Installation

• For Arch Linux, you can download declaro from the AUR:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/declaro-git.git && cd declaro-git && makepkg -si

Manual Installation

1. Make sure you have the following the dependencies installed: git bash diffutils sed findutils make sudo coreutils tar

2. Clone the repository and install declaro:

git clone https://github.com/mantinhas/declaro.git && cd declaro && make install

3. Install the config file:

   • For supported distros (Arch Linux, Ubuntu, Fedora/RHEL):

     • Use the script to detect and install the correct config:

     make install-config

   • For non-supported distros:

     • Copy the template config file:

     sudo install -Dm644 /usr/local/share/declaro/config/template-config.sh /etc/declaro/config.sh

     • Edit the config file to match your package manager's commands. Refer to the Configuration Section for more details.

     sudo nano /etc/declaro/config.sh