Arch Linux pikaur¶

ID: pikaur
Home page: https://github.com/actionless/pikaur
Upstream stars: ⭐ 953
Last commit: 2026-03-07
Version requirement: >= 1
Platforms: 🅱️ BSD · 🐧 Linux · ⨂ Unix
Operations: installed · outdated · orphans · search · install · upgrade · upgrade_all · remove · sync · cleanup · doctor
purl types: pkg:pikaur
CLI name: pikaur
Every call: pikaur --noconfirm --color never <command>
Issues and PRs: 📦 manager: pacman-based
Source: meta_package_manager/managers/pacman.py

AUR helper wrapping pacman, driven through the pikaur binary.

Inherits every operation, parser and forced argument from Pacman; the binary, the version probe and the release floor are what differ. Its own --query --upgrades reports AUR updates on top of the official repositories.

Like the other helpers, pikaur must run as the regular user: makepkg refuses to build as root, and pikaur drives sudo pacman itself for the privileged steps. mpm therefore never wraps it in sudo.

Note

pikaur wraps pacman’s options faithfully except --sync --refresh --sysupgrade (-Syu), which it splits into a refresh pass and an upgrade pass so a user can amend the package selection in between. The inherited Pacman.upgrade_all_cli() still builds the combined form, and the --noconfirm forced by Pacman.pre_args is what keeps that split unattended.

Documentation: pikaur.

What `mpm` adds to `pikaur`¶

Through mpm, pikaur gains:

a one-command cleanup --orphans that removes every orphaned dependency at once
--extended search, to match against package descriptions

Bigger still, mpm reaches across every manager at once: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover pikaur alongside every other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill of materials.

Every mpm command also gains --dry-run and --plan previews, cross-scheme version comparison and purl identifiers. See manager augmentations for how each one is built.

Your `pikaur` commands, in `mpm`¶

You already know pikaur: each operation maps one-to-one onto mpm, in an interface shared by every manager.

To…	With `pikaur`	With `mpm`
List what’s installed	`pacman --query`	`mpm --pikaur installed`
List outdated packages	`pacman --query --upgrades`	`mpm --pikaur outdated`
Search for a package	`pacman --sync --search fire`	`mpm --pikaur search fire`
Install a package	`sudo pacman --sync firefox`	`mpm install pkg:pikaur/firefox`
Upgrade one package	`sudo pacman --sync firefox`	`mpm --pikaur upgrade firefox`
Upgrade everything	`sudo pacman --sync --refresh --sysupgrade`	`mpm --pikaur upgrade --all`
Remove a package	`sudo pacman --remove firefox`	`mpm remove pkg:pikaur/firefox`
List orphaned dependencies	`pacman --query --deps --unrequired`	`mpm --pikaur orphans`
Clear caches	`sudo pacman --sync --clean --clean`	`mpm --pikaur cleanup --cache`
Run health checks	`pacman --database --check`	`mpm --pikaur doctor`

Prefix any command above with --dry-run to simulate the underlying manager calls without touching the system: the safe way to watch what mpm would do before trusting it.

Operations¶

Operation	Supported	Notes
`installed`	✓
`outdated`	✓
`orphans`	✓
`search`	✓	extended search backfilled by `mpm`
`install`	✓
`upgrade`	✓
`upgrade_all`	✓
`remove`	✓	`--orphans` also drops the package’s orphaned dependencies
`sync`	✓
`cleanup`	✓	`--orphans` sweep backfilled by `mpm`
`doctor`	✓

Selecting and configuring `pikaur`¶

Deselect pikaur for a single run with --no-pikaur, or persist the choice in your configuration:

[mpm]
pikaur = false

The arguments and environment variables listed in the box atop this page are forced on every pikaur call, so runs stay quiet, non-interactive and reproducible: the defaults you would set in CI anyway.

Keep it enabled but tune how mpm drives it with a per-manager override:

[mpm.managers.pikaur]
timeout = 900

mpm config-template pikaur prints every overridable attribute as a ready-to-paste block.

Recipes¶

A few jobs you would otherwise script around pikaur, one mpm command each:

Snapshot and clone a machine: mpm --pikaur dump pikaur.toml, then mpm restore pikaur.toml on the next one.
Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --pikaur sbom (CycloneDX by default, --spdx for SPDX).
Gate CI on health: mpm --pikaur doctor relays Arch Linux pikaur’s own diagnosis and exits non-zero on trouble.

Privilege escalation¶

Arch Linux pikaur runs sudo from inside its own commands: mpm never wraps it, keeps an already-warm credential cache alive for those internal escalations, and warns when a mutating call goes silent on a terminal with a cold cache, since a password prompt may be hiding in the stream.

See privilege escalation for the full policy.

Concurrency¶

mpm never runs pikaur at the same time as pacaur, pacman, pamac, paru, trizen or yay: they all reach the pacman database (/var/lib/pacman/db.lck), and two of them mutating at once fail to init their transaction. Each mutating operation waits for the previous one, even with a higher --jobs, while managers outside this group keep running in parallel.

Only mutations are held back. The read-only queries (installed, outdated, search) take no backend lock and stay fully concurrent.

Cooldown¶

Not yet assessed in the cooldown support table.

A cooldown only pays off where a compromised release can be withdrawn while the clock runs, and can only be emulated where the registry dates its releases. From the retraction table:

Registry: AUR
Retraction: None at the version level: an AUR package is a git repository with no per-version artifact to withdraw, so remediation is a maintainer push or deletion of the whole package
Publish date: ✅ server-set LastModified, the push timestamp mpm’s yay overlay gates on. Git commit dates are client-set (GIT_COMMITTER_DATE), forgeable, and never consulted

With --cooldown set, mpm skips this manager’s install and upgrade operations rather than run them unguarded (fail-closed); --allow-unsupported-managers opts back in.

Version probe¶

The version is extracted from the output of pikaur --version with:

r".*Pikaur\s+v(?P<version>\S+)"

Upstream project¶

Metrics	`actionless/pikaur`
Activity
Popularity
Metadata

Changelog¶

8.0.0.dev0 (unreleased)
- Stop running the AUR helpers concurrently with pacman and with each other. All of them drive the same pacman database, either by shelling out to sudo pacman or, for pamac, through Manjaro’s own libalpm binding, so two mutating at once failed to init their transaction.
- Add the pikaur AUR helper with the full operation set inherited from pacman.