Linting

The sbuild tool includes a built-in linter that validates SBUILD recipes before execution. It checks for required fields, correct types, valid values, and runs shellcheck on shell scripts.

Prerequisites

• shellcheck — used to validate x_exec.run and x_exec.pkgver blocks

soar install shellcheck

Installation

soar install sbuild

Or download directly from sbuilder releases.

Usage

# Validate a single file
sbuild lint ./myapp.yaml

# Validate multiple files
sbuild lint ./packages/*.yaml

# Validate in parallel
sbuild lint -p 8 ./packages/*.yaml

# Run in pkgver mode (execute pkgver scripts)
sbuild lint -P ./myapp.yaml

# Skip shellcheck validation
sbuild lint --no-shellcheck ./myapp.yaml

What It Checks

• Required fields: _disabled, pkg, description, src_url, ghcr_pkg, and x_exec must be present
• Field types: Arrays must be arrays, strings must be strings
• Valid values: pkg_type must be a recognized format, category must match FreeDesktop spec
• Name constraints: pkg, pkg_id, app_id only allow [a-zA-Z0-9+\-_.]
• Shell syntax: Validates x_exec.pkgver and x_exec.run blocks via shellcheck
• URL format: src_url, homepage entries must be valid URLs
• Host triples: x_exec.host entries must match {arch}-{os} format

Common Errors

Missing required field

ERROR: field 'description' is required but missing

Add the missing field to your SBUILD.

Invalid pkg_type

ERROR: invalid pkg_type 'Appimage', must be lowercase

Use lowercase values: appimage, not Appimage or AppImage.

Empty x_exec.run

ERROR: x_exec.run must not be empty

The run block must contain actual shell commands.

Pre-submission Checklist

Before submitting an SBUILD to soarpkgs:

1. Run sbuild lint — no errors
2. Test the build locally with sbuild build