`meta_package_manager.managers.flatpak` module¶

class meta_package_manager.managers.flatpak.Flatpak[source]¶

Bases: PackageManager

Flatpak manages sandboxed desktop applications pulled from remotes like Flathub.

mpm covers applications only: every listing passes --app, so runtimes and SDKs stay out of scope.

Note

All operations target the system-wide scope except cleanup which only repairs the user installation. Per-scope targeting (system vs user) is tracked in #1725.

Note

Escalation is polkit’s job, so no operation is marked sudo: flatpak hands system-scope mutations to its privileged system helper over D-Bus, which authorizes them through polkit (Flathub documents plain flatpak install). Under a strict polkit policy, unattended mutations need a rule permitting them without interactive authentication.

Initialize cli_errors list.

operation_notes: ClassVar = {'outdated': 'Each pending update costs one follow-up `flatpak info` call to recover its installed version.'}¶

Per-operation hints rendered in the Notes column of the manager page’s Operations table.

Keyed by the Operations member name, each value is a single short sentence explaining why the manager lacks the operation, or what makes its implementation partial: the pointer a reader needs to judge whether the gap is one they could help close. Each sentence starts with a capital and closes with a period, and starts on a word rather than a code span, so the cell reads standalone beside its row. A blank cell stays silent: a manager documenting nothing documents no gap.

The full rationale never lives here: it belongs in a comment beside the implementing method (or beside this declaration, for an operation with no method to hang it on), so the sentence on the page stays a hint and the code keeps the story. The class docstring follows the same split: it keeps only what a user needs to run the tool day to day, never how mpm wraps it.

Validated by test_operation_notes, which also checks every key matches a real operation: a key outside the enum’s vocabulary would never reach a page.

homepage_url: str | None = 'https://flatpak.org'¶

Home page of the project, only used in documentation for reference.

Left unset when the home page is the project’s repository, which repository_url names on its own, and when it is the project’s manual, which documentation_url names. Never inherited, like the other links.

documentation_url: str | None = 'https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/'¶

Entry point of the project’s own documentation, or None when it has none.

The manual, the documentation site, or the man page of the CLI mpm drives: whichever page a user reads to learn the commands this manager wraps. Listed between homepage_url and repository_url in the links of the manager’s page, so a reader reaching for the tool’s reference finds it in the box of facts rather than in the prose below it.

Left unset where a link would state a fact twice or invent one: a tool documenting itself in its repository alone, whose README repository_url already reaches. A page about the ecosystem rather than the tool does not qualify either.

Where a project’s only site is its manual, that address belongs here and homepage_url stays unset: the slot names what the page is, and a reader reaching for the reference looks under the documentation link.

Never inherited, like every other link: the AUR helpers extending pacman each document themselves.

repository_url: str | None = 'https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak'¶

Repository holding the project’s code, or None when it has no public one.

Linked from the manager’s documentation page. Also what the weekly metrics sample reads: docs/docs_update.py writes it into the [tool.repomatic.metrics] subjects of pyproject.toml when its forge answers the sampler, through a mirror for a forge that does not.

Never inherited, for the same reason as wikipedia_url: the AUR helpers extending pacman each live in a repository of their own.

wikipedia_url: str | None = 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatpak'¶

English Wikipedia article about the project, or None when it has none.

Listed last in the links of the manager’s documentation page. The article covers the project that home page names, or is a redirect Wikipedia keeps under the project’s name, landing on the part of a broader article that describes it: Cargo_(software) opens the Cargo section of the Rust article. An article that merely mentions the project does not count, nor does one about a related subject: lazy is a Neovim plugin manager, and the Neovim article is not about it.

Never inherited: the metaclass resets it to None on any class not declaring its own. A subclass often wraps a distinct project, like the six AUR helpers extending pacman, and would otherwise present pacman’s article as its own. Documentation-only, like homepage_url.

logo: str | None = 'flatpak'¶

Slug of the brand mark standing for this manager in the documentation.

Names an SVG vendored under docs/assets/managers/, whose provenance and license are recorded in docs/assets/managers/logos.yaml. Inlined at the top of the manager’s page by meta_package_manager._docs; a manager leaving it unset keeps the page’s default package glyph.

Several managers legitimately share one slug, either because they wrap the same upstream (brew and cask) or because the tool has no mark of its own and its ecosystem’s stands in (apt under Debian’s swirl, cargo under Rust’s gear). Documentation-only, like homepage_url: no CLI output reads it.

keywords: tuple[str, ...] = ('flathub',)¶

Well-known names for this manager that its id does not already carry.

Merged into the PyPI keywords of pyproject.toml by update_keywords() of docs/docs_update.py, alongside every manager ID and the globally curated KEYWORDS_EXTRAS. Declare an alias here rather than in that tuple whenever it names this manager: an alias living beside the class it describes cannot outlive it, where a central entry silently rots once the manager is renamed or dropped.

Reserve KEYWORDS_EXTRAS for terms belonging to no manager in particular, like cyclonedx or package manager. Documentation-only: no CLI output reads it.

Each keyword also becomes a content rule of the issue labeller, so its precision bar applies here: see generate_content_rules(). A subclass inherits the terms of its parent without claiming them, since test_manager_keywords_have_one_owner reads what a class declares itself.

brewfile_entry_type: ClassVar[str | None] = 'flatpak'¶

Mapped to Homebrew Bundle’s flatpak extension.

Its with: ["remote"] keyword goes unused, installed() capturing no origin remote to fill it with. See Snapshot and export, section “Flatpak remote”.

platforms: frozenset[Platform] | Group | Platform | Iterable[Platform | Group] = frozenset({Platform(id='aix', name='IBM AIX'), Platform(id='almalinux', name='AlmaLinux'), Platform(id='alpine', name='Alpine Linux'), Platform(id='altlinux', name='ALT Linux'), Platform(id='amzn', name='Amazon Linux'), Platform(id='android', name='Android'), Platform(id='arch', name='Arch Linux'), Platform(id='buildroot', name='Buildroot'), Platform(id='cachyos', name='CachyOS'), Platform(id='centos', name='CentOS'), Platform(id='chromeos', name='ChromeOS'), Platform(id='clearlinux', name='Clear Linux OS'), Platform(id='cloudlinux', name='CloudLinux OS'), Platform(id='crux', name='CRUX'), Platform(id='cygwin', name='Cygwin'), Platform(id='debian', name='Debian'), Platform(id='dragonfly_bsd', name='DragonFly BSD'), Platform(id='endeavouros', name='EndeavourOS'), Platform(id='exherbo', name='Exherbo Linux'), Platform(id='fedora', name='Fedora'), Platform(id='freebsd', name='FreeBSD'), Platform(id='generic_linux', name='Generic Linux'), Platform(id='gentoo', name='Gentoo Linux'), Platform(id='guix', name='Guix System'), Platform(id='haiku', name='Haiku'), Platform(id='hurd', name='GNU/Hurd'), Platform(id='ibm_powerkvm', name='IBM PowerKVM'), Platform(id='illumos', name='illumos'), Platform(id='kali', name='Kali Linux'), Platform(id='kvmibm', name='KVM for IBM z Systems'), Platform(id='linuxmint', name='Linux Mint'), Platform(id='mageia', name='Mageia'), Platform(id='mandriva', name='Mandriva Linux'), Platform(id='manjaro', name='Manjaro Linux'), Platform(id='midnightbsd', name='MidnightBSD'), Platform(id='netbsd', name='NetBSD'), Platform(id='nixos', name='NixOS'), Platform(id='nobara', name='Nobara'), Platform(id='nutyx', name='NuTyX'), Platform(id='openbsd', name='OpenBSD'), Platform(id='opensuse', name='openSUSE'), Platform(id='openwrt', name='OpenWrt'), Platform(id='oracle', name='Oracle Linux'), Platform(id='os400', name='IBM i'), Platform(id='parallels', name='Parallels'), Platform(id='pidora', name='Pidora'), Platform(id='pikaos', name='PikaOS'), Platform(id='raspbian', name='Raspbian'), Platform(id='rhel', name='RedHat Enterprise Linux'), Platform(id='rocky', name='Rocky Linux'), Platform(id='scientific', name='Scientific Linux'), Platform(id='slackware', name='Slackware'), Platform(id='sles', name='SUSE Linux Enterprise Server'), Platform(id='slitaz', name='SliTaz GNU/Linux'), Platform(id='solaris', name='Solaris'), Platform(id='solus', name='Solus'), Platform(id='sourcemage', name='Source Mage GNU/Linux'), Platform(id='sunos', name='SunOS'), Platform(id='tuxedo', name='Tuxedo OS'), Platform(id='ubuntu', name='Ubuntu'), Platform(id='ultramarine', name='Ultramarine'), Platform(id='void', name='Void Linux'), Platform(id='wsl1', name='Windows Subsystem for Linux v1'), Platform(id='wsl2', name='Windows Subsystem for Linux v2'), Platform(id='xenserver', name='XenServer')})¶

List of platforms supported by the manager.

Allows for a mishmash of platforms and groups of platforms. Will be normalized into a frozenset of Platform instances at instantiation.

requirement: str | None = '>=1.9.1'¶: The first release that pins a runtime installed on explicit request, so that uninstall --unused keeps it, and that ships the pin command mark_explicit() runs. Below it, cleanup_orphan() removes every runtime no application uses, including one the user just installed.

version_regexes: tuple[str, ...] = ('Flatpak\\s+(?P<version>\\S+)',)¶

Read from the PACKAGE_STRING that --version prints, which meson.build sets to Flatpak followed by the project version. The sample below comes from that source, not from a captured run.

$ flatpak --version
Flatpak 1.16.1

property installed: Iterator[Package]¶

Fetch installed packages.

$ flatpak list --app --columns=name,application,version         > --ostree-verbose
Peek    com.uploadedlobster.peek        1.3.1
Fragments       de.haeckerfelix.Fragments       1.4
GNOME MPV       io.github.GnomeMpv      0.16
Syncthing GTK   me.kozec.syncthingtk    v0.9.4.3
Builder org.flatpak.Builder

property outdated: Iterator[Package]¶

Fetch outdated packages.

$ flatpak remote-ls --app --updates --columns=name,application,version             --ostree-verbose
GNOME Dictionary        org.gnome.Dictionary    3.26.0
Files   org.gnome.Nautilus      42.2

release_date(package_id)[source]¶

Publication timestamp of the latest build of an app, read off its remote.

The date is the ostree commit timestamp of the newest commit on the app’s branch, reported by flatpak remote-info and rendered in UTC with a literal +0000 offset whatever the host locale. The remote’s build service stamps it at publication (Flathub’s buildbot for the flathub remote), so the app’s author cannot backdate it, which is what makes it a sound cooldown clock. On a third-party remote the publisher stamps it instead: the probe is then only as trustworthy as the remote itself, exactly like the packages it serves.

The probe resolves the remote to interrogate from the installed app’s origin, and falls back to trying every configured remote for an app not installed yet (an install gated before its first installation). On a host with several remotes, that fallback logs one error per remote not serving the app.

$ flatpak remote-info --ostree-verbose flathub org.gnome.Calculator

Calculator - Perform arithmetic, scientific or financial calculations

            ID: org.gnome.Calculator
           Ref: app/org.gnome.Calculator/aarch64/stable
          Arch: aarch64
        Branch: stable
       Version: 50.0
       License: GPL-3.0-or-later
    Collection: org.flathub.Stable
 Download Size: 1.8 MB
Installed Size: 4.9 MB
       Runtime: org.gnome.Platform/aarch64/50
           Sdk: org.gnome.Sdk/aarch64/50

        Commit: 473c4d6d2d553eaeba13c0f1fd27cc9af0c4362cb4ad2a7050149930e89f3eb1
        Parent: 6f12ad4cd67efce88bf63ec51c13a9b6a1891c61d8ab640b85ce25d0f37f089c
       Subject: Merge pull request #52 from flathub/update-master-19cd934 (ee57e22e7a51)
          Date: 2026-03-18 19:40:01 +0000

Return type:: datetime | None

search(query, extended, exact)[source]¶

Fetch matching packages.

Caution

Search does not support extended or exact matching. So we return the best subset of results and let meta_package_manager.manager.PackageManager.refiltered_search() refine them.

$ flatpak search gitg --ostree-verbose
gitg    GUI for git     org.gnome.gitg  3.32.1  stable  flathub

Return type:: Iterator[Package]

install(package_id, version=None)[source]¶

Install one package.

$ flatpak install --noninteractive org.gnome.Dictionary

Return type:: str

may_hold_as_dependency(package_id)[source]¶

Whether package_id names an installed runtime.

uninstall --unused never removes an application, and the inventory lists applications only. So the default check against installed_ids never sees the one kind of package that can be a dependency: a runtime, or an extension of one. This reads the installed runtimes instead, matching both the bare ID and the ID//BRANCH form. A failed listing answers False, leaving the install itself untouched.

$ flatpak list --runtime --columns=application,branch

Return type:: bool

mark_explicit(package_id)[source]¶

Pin an installed runtime, so that uninstall --unused keeps it.

flatpak pins a runtime it installs on explicit request. A runtime that is already installed is skipped before the pin: flatpak-transaction.c.

$ flatpak pin org.gnome.Platform//48

Return type:: str

upgrade_all_cli()[source]¶

Generates the CLI to upgrade all outdated packages.

$ flatpak update --noninteractive

Return type:: tuple[str, ...]

upgrade_one_cli(package_id, version=None)[source]¶

Generates the CLI to upgrade the provided package.

$ flatpak update --noninteractive org.gnome.Dictionary

Return type:: tuple[str, ...]

cli_names: tuple[str, ...] = ('flatpak',)¶

List of CLI names the package manager is known as.

This list of recognized CLI names is ordered by priority. That way we can influence the search of the right binary.

..hint::: This was helpful in the case of the Python transition from 2.x to 3.x, where multiple versions of the same executable were named python or python3.

By default, this property’s value is derived from the manager’s ID (see the MetaPackageManager.__init__ method above).

id: str = 'flatpak'¶

Package manager’s ID.

Derived by defaults from the lower-cased class name in which underscores _ are replaced by dashes -.

This ID must be unique among all package manager definitions and lower-case, as they’re used as feature flags for the mpm CLI.

name: str = 'Flatpak'¶

Return package manager’s common name.

Default value is based on class name.

remove(package_id)[source]¶

Remove one package.

$ flatpak uninstall --noninteractive org.gnome.Dictionary

Return type:: str

virtual: bool = False¶

Should we expose the package manager to the user?

Virtual package manager are just skeleton classes used to factorize code among managers of the same family.

cleanup_orphan()[source]¶

Uninstall runtimes and extensions no longer used by any installed app.

A pinned runtime stays: see mark_explicit().

$ flatpak uninstall --unused --noninteractive

Return type:: None

cleanup_repair()[source]¶

Verify and repair the per-user installation.

See the flatpak repair reference.

$ flatpak repair --user

Return type:: None

doctor_cli()[source]¶

Generates the CLI running the native self-diagnosis.

The read-only twin of cleanup_repair(): --dry-run reports what a repair of the per-user installation would fix without touching it.

$ flatpak repair --user --dry-run

Return type:: tuple[str, ...]

meta_package_manager.managers.flatpak module¶

`meta_package_manager.managers.flatpak` module¶