Flatpak Builder

flatpak-builder has already been introduced in Building your first Flatpak and Building Introduction. It is packaged by most of the popular distributions and there is also a flatpak-builder Flatpak package on Flathub.

This page provides additional details on how to use flatpak-builder, including the various command options that are available.

Exporting

flatpak-builder provides two options for exporting an application in order to run it. The first is to export to a repository, from which the application can be run. The second is to automatically install locally.

Exporting to a repository

The --repo option allows a repository to be specified, for the application to be exported to. This takes the format:

$ flatpak-builder --repo=<repo> <build-dir> <manifest>

Here, <repo> is a path to a repository. If no repository exists at the specified location, the repository will be created. If the application is already in the specified repository, flatpak-builder will add the build as a new version of the existing application.

You can put more than one application in the same repository by using the same --repo path for multiple invocations of flatpak-builder.

Note

By default, flatpak-builder splits off translations and debug information into separate .Locale and .Debug extensions. These extensions are automatically exported into a repository along with the application.

Installing builds directly

Instead of exporting to a repository, the Flatpak that is produced by flatpak-builder can be automatically installed locally, using the --install option:

$ flatpak-builder --install <build-dir> <manifest>

This approach has the advantage of skipping the separate install step that is needed when exporting to a repository.

Signing

Every commit to a Flatpak repository should be signed with a GPG signature. If flatpak-builder is being used to modify or create a repository, a GPG key should therefore be passed to it. This can be done with the --gpg-sign option, such as:

$ flatpak-builder --gpg-sign=<key> --repo=<repository> <manifest>

Here, <key> is the ID of the GPG key that is to be used. The --gpg-homedir option can also be used to specify the home directory of the key that is being used.

Though it generally isn’t recommended, it is possible not to use GPG verification. In this case, the --no-gpg-verify option should be used when adding the repository. Note that it is necessary to become root in order to update a repository that does not have GPG verification enabled.