Manifests

The input to flatpak-builder is a JSON or YAML file that describes the parameters for building an application, as well as instructions for each of the modules that are to be built. This file is called the manifest.

This page provides information and guidance on how to use manifests, including an explanation of the most common parameters that can be specified. It is recommended to have followed the Building your first Flatpak tutorial before reading this section, and to be familiar with Flatpak Builder.

Manifest files should be named using the application ID. For example, the manifest file for GNOME Dictionary is named org.gnome.Dictionary.yml. This page uses this manifest file for all its examples.

A complete list of all the properties that can be specified in manifest files can be found in the Flatpak Builder Command Reference, as well as the flatpak-manifest man page.

Basic properties

Each manifest file should specify basic information about the application that is to be built, including the app-id, runtime, runtime-version, sdk and command parameters. These properties are typically specified at the beginning of the file.

For example, the GNOME Dictionary manifest includes:

app-id: org.gnome.Dictionary
runtime: org.gnome.Platform
runtime-version: '43'
sdk: org.gnome.Sdk
command: gnome-dictionary

Specifying a runtime and runtime version allows that the runtime that is needed by your application to be automatically installed on users’ systems.

File renaming

Exports are application files that are made available to the host, and include things like the application’s .desktop file and icon.

The names of files that are exported by a Flatpak must be prefixed using the application ID, such as org.gnome.Dictionary.desktop. The best way to do this is to rename these files directly in the application’s source.

If renaming exported files to use the application ID is not possible, flatpak-builder allows them to be renamed as part of the build process. This can be done by specifying one of the following properties in the manifest:

  • rename-icon - rename the application icon
  • rename-desktop-file - rename the .desktop filename
  • rename-appdata-file - rename the AppData file

Each of these properties accepts the name of the source file to be renamed. flatpak-builder then automatically renames the file to match the application ID. Note that this renaming method can introduce internal naming conflicts, and that renaming files in tree is therefore the most reliable approach.

Finishing

Applications that are run with Flatpak have extremely limited access to the host environment by default, but applications require access to resources outside of their sandbox in order to be useful. Finishing is the build stage where the application’s sandbox permissions are specified, in order to give access to these resources.

The finishing manifest section uses the finish-args property, which can be seen in the Dictionary manifest file:

finish-args:
  # X11 + XShm access
  - --share=ipc
  - --socket=x11
  # Wayland access
  - --socket=wayland
  # Needs to talk to the network:
  - --share=network
  # Needs to save files locally
  - --filesystem=xdg-documents
  - --metadata=X-DConf=migrate-path=/org/gnome/dictionary/

Guidance on which permissions to use can be found in the Sandbox Permissions, and a full list of finish-args options can be found in Sandbox Permissions Reference.

If you’re wondering about the last finish arg, see this blog post.

Cleanup

The cleanup property can be used to remove files produced by the build process that are not wanted as part of the application, such as headers or developer documentation. Two properties in the manifest file are used for this.

First, a list of filename patterns can be included:

cleanup:
  - '/include'
  - '/bin/foo-*'
  - '*.a'

The second cleanup property is a list of commands that are run during the cleanup phase:

cleanup-commands:
  - 'sed s/foo/bar/ /bin/app.sh'

Cleanup properties can be set on a per-module basis, in which case only filenames that were created by that particular module will be matched.

Modules

The module list specifies each of the modules that are to be built as part of the build process. One of these modules is the application itself, and other modules are dependencies and libraries that are bundled as part of the Flatpak. While simple applications may only specify one or two modules, and therefore have short modules sections, some applications can bundle numerous modules and therefore have lengthy modules sections.

GNOME Dictionary’s modules section is short, since it just contains the application itself, and looks like:

modules:
  - name: gnome-dictionary
    buildsystem: meson
    config-opts:
      - -Dbuild_man=false
    sources:
      - type: archive
        url: https://download.gnome.org/sources/gnome-dictionary/3.26/gnome-dictionary-3.26.1.tar.xz
        sha256: 16b8bc248dcf68987826d5e39234b1bb7fd24a2607fcdbf4258fde88f012f300
      - type: patch
        path: appdata_oars.patch

As can be seen, each listed module has a name (which can be freely assigned) and a list of sources. Each source has a type, and available types include:

  • archive - .tar or .zip archive files
  • git - Git repositories
  • bzr - Bazaar repositories
  • file - local/remote files (these are copied into the source directory)
  • dir - local directories (these are copied into the source directory)
  • script - an array of shell commands (these are put in a shellscript file)
  • shell - an array of shell commands that are run during source extraction
  • patch - a patch (are applied to the source directory)
  • extra-data - data that can be downloaded at install time; this can include archive or package files

Different properties are available for each source type, which are listed in the Flatpak Builder Command Reference.

Supported build systems

Modules can be built with a variety of build systems, including:

A “simple” build method is also available, which allows a series of commands to be specified.

Shared Modules

Shared Modules (or shared-modules) is a repository containing various manifests to build common libraries. It is intended to be used as a git submodule.

To add it to your repository, run this command:

git submodule add https://github.com/flathub/shared-modules.git

Then, add whichever module you want. In this example, we will use gtk2:

modules:
  - shared-modules/gtk2/gtk2.json

To update the submodule, run this command:

git submodule update --remote --merge

To remove the submodule, run these commands:

git submodule deinit -f -- shared-modules
rm -rf .git/modules/shared-modules
git rm -f shared-modules
rm .gitmodules

Flatpak Builder Tools

Flatpak Builder Tools (or flatpak-builder-tools) is a collection of scripts to aid using flatpak-builder. In this repository, each directory contains instructions to generate a manifest for the respective platform.