arch-linux-package-search

A Go TUI for searching official Arch Linux packages and the AUR, powered by bleve full-text search. Type a query and get instant, ranked results across package names, descriptions, and versions.

Features

• Indexes directly from local pacman sync databases (/var/lib/pacman/sync/*.db) -- no API pagination, no rate limits, instant and complete
• Optionally fetches the full AUR metadata archive in one request (packages-meta-ext-v1.json.gz)
• Full-text search via bleve with field boosting (name 5x, description 1x, version 0.5x)
• Debounced search input for smooth interactive use
• Detail view with package metadata and direct Arch/AUR links
• Persistent on-disk index (cached under $XDG_CACHE_HOME)

Requirements

• Go 1.21+
• Arch Linux (or any distro with pacman sync databases at /var/lib/pacman/sync/)
• Network access to aur.archlinux.org only if you want AUR packages

Build

go build -o arch-linux-package-search .

Usage

On first run, the tool reads your local pacman sync databases and (optionally) downloads the AUR metadata archive to build a bleve index. The official repo data comes straight from disk so it's near-instant. The AUR download is ~15 MB compressed and takes a few seconds.

# Launch the interactive TUI (indexes on first run)
./arch-linux-package-search

# Force a re-index from current sync DBs + AUR
./arch-linux-package-search --refresh

# Skip AUR (fully offline, only official repos)
./arch-linux-package-search --no-aur

# Custom pacman sync DB path (e.g. for a chroot or another machine's DBs)
./arch-linux-package-search --sync-dir /mnt/arch/var/lib/pacman/sync

# Pre-populate the search
./arch-linux-package-search linux