• Requirements
• Package Build Script
  • Package Build Script Variables
  • Package Build Step Overrides
  • Package Build Source URLs
• Subpackage Build Script
  • Subpackage Build Script Variables
  • Subpackage Dependencies Reserved Package Build Variables

The following requirements exist for packages that need to be built with the termux-package build infrastructure and to added to the list of supported packages.

• No operations requiring root privileges.
• No operations modifying files outside of build directory or $TERMUX__PREFIX.
• All scripts must be formatted according Coding guideline.

Package build script (build.sh) is a bash script that contains definitions for variables/metadata and (if needed) instructions for Termux build system on how to build the package. Such scripts are internally used by the build-package.sh script and are not standalone.

The build.sh file for a package exist under the <repo_channel>/<package_name> directory in the termux-packages repo root directory where repo_channel refers to the repository channel of the package, whose directory is specified in the repo.json file.

Termux packages repository hosted on https://packages.termux.dev provides all of its packages in different repository channels. A repository channel is simply a location which holds packages of similar types, which can be downloaded and installed using a package manager, and each channel has a different purpose. A package can only exist in one repository channel. There are currently 3 repository channels. By default, only packages from the main channel can be installed. To install packages from other channels, then that can be set up by installing their respective channel setup package provided by the main channel, which automatically adds the channel to the sources.list.

• main channel:
  • Purpose: Packages that can be run in the Terminal and have no special requirements.
  • Package sources: https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/tree/master/packages
  • Package builds: https://packages.termux.dev/apt/termux-main
• root channel:
  • Purpose: Packages that require Termux app to be granted root access.
  • Package sources: https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/tree/master/root-packages
  • Package builds: https://packages.termux.dev/apt/termux-root
  • Channel setup package: root-repo
• x11 channel:
  • Purpose: Packages related to X11 and their libraries that require a GUI.
  • Package sources: https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/tree/master/x11-packages
  • Package builds: https://packages.termux.dev/apt/termux-x11
  • Channel setup package: x11-repo

For example, for a package named foo, the following package build.sh source paths may be used.

• main channel: packages/foo/build.sh
• root channel: root-packages/foo/build.sh
• x11 channel: x11-packages/foo/build.sh

Following is an example of a minimal working package build script.

# http(s) link to package home page.
TERMUX_PKG_HOMEPAGE=https://www.gnu.org/software/ed/

# One-line, short package description.
TERMUX_PKG_DESCRIPTION="Classic UNIX line editor"

# License.
# Use SPDX identifier: https://spdx.org/licenses/
TERMUX_PKG_LICENSE="GPL-2.0"

# Who maintains the package.
# Specify yourself (Github nick, or name + email) if you wish to maintain the
# package, fix its bugs, etc. Otherwise specify "@termux".
# Please note that unofficial repositories are not allowed to reference @termux
# as their maintainer.
# See also:
# - https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#s-f-maintainer
# - https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-binary.html#s-maintainer
TERMUX_PKG_MAINTAINER="@termux"

# Version.
TERMUX_PKG_VERSION=1.15

# URL to archive with source code.
TERMUX_PKG_SRCURL=https://mirrors.kernel.org/gnu/ed/ed-${TERMUX_PKG_VERSION}.tar.lz

# SHA-256 checksum of the source code archive.
TERMUX_PKG_SHA256=ad4489c0ad7a108c514262da28e6c2a426946fb408a3977ef1ed34308bdfd174

Note that order of fields like shown above is preferred. In the above example there are no build step overrides as the default ones are enough to successfully build the package.

build-package.sh can automatically detect following build systems:

• Autotools
• CMake
• Meson
• Haskell (or cabal)

NOTE: If packaging Haskell packages also see this.

To pass some additional arguments, use the field TERMUX_PKG_EXTRA_CONFIGURE_ARGS.

See also Auto updating packages.

Following is a list of package build steps that can be overridden by the build.sh script. Complete reference for all build steps can be found in Building packages.

The $TERMUX_PKG_SRCURL in the build.sh file defines the URL for where to download the package source. It can either be a remote *https://* URL or a local *file://* URL.

Remote package source URLs are in the *https://domain/path format where https:// is the scheme.

The build-package.sh scripts support 2 formats for remote https:// URLs, and both have their own build time behaviour.

• https://domain/path URL for package source release tar/zip file.

  • When the build is started for the package, the source file will be downloaded if not already download and its checksum will be compared against the value set in $TERMUX_PKG_SHA256 variable of the build.sh file, unless its set to SKIP_CHECKSUM. If checksum does not match, then build with fail with a Wrong checksum error.
  • If package is being rebuilt and $TERMUX_PKG_SHA256 is not set to SKIP_CHECKSUM, like with the -f/-F flags and source file already exists, then checksum will be checked again against the already downloaded file, and if it does not match, then package source will be re-downloaded and checksum re-checked. However, if checksum matches against the existing local file, then it will be used without downloading source again.
  • If package is being rebuilt and $TERMUX_PKG_SHA256 is set to SKIP_CHECKSUM, then package source will be re-downloaded every time and no checksum will be checked.
  • Any value for the $TERMUX_PKG_GIT_BRANCH variable in the build.sh of the package will be ignored.

• git+https://*.git URL for package remote git source repository.

  • The URL path should end with .git and host a remote git repository. (1, 2)
  • If a branch is set in the $TERMUX_PKG_GIT_BRANCH variable in the build.sh of the package, it will be checked out before building.
  • If the source directory has been cloned already in a previous build, then it will NOT be cloned again, even if -f/-F flags are passed for rebuilds, and the -r flag WILL be required to clone the latest sources again/every time.

Local package source URLs are in the *file:///path/to/source* formats where file:// is the scheme and the /path is an absolute and normalized path to a directory or file on the local filesystem. Note that 3 forward slashes / are necessary and file://path is not a valid URL. The path must also be normalized with no duplicate or trailing path separators /.

The build-package.sh scripts support 3 formats for local file:// URLs, and they all have their own build time behaviour.

• file:///path/to/source/dir URL for path to a source directory, which may or may not be a git repository.

  • When the build is started for the package, a tar file will be created from the source directory for its current state and it will be used as is.
  • If the source directory is a git directory, no changes will be made to any git branches/tags. Any value for the $TERMUX_PKG_GIT_BRANCH variable in the build.sh of the package will be ignored and it will have to manually checkout out. Any uncommitted changes to current git branch WILL also get built.
  • No checksum checks will be done against the value set in $TERMUX_PKG_SHA256 variable of the build.sh file, and a tar file for the source directory will be created every time package is built, assuming -f/-F flags are passed for rebuilds, and the -r flag WILL not be required to re-download updated sources. To avoid confusion, the $TERMUX_PKG_SHA256 variable should be set to an empty string or SKIP_CHECKSUM.

• file:///path/to/source/file URL for path to a source file, like a tar or zip file.

  • When the build is started for the package, the source file will be downloaded if not already download and its checksum will be compared against the value set in $TERMUX_PKG_SHA256 variable of the build.sh file, unless its set to SKIP_CHECKSUM. If checksum does not match, then build with fail with a Wrong checksum error.
  • If package is being rebuilt and $TERMUX_PKG_SHA256 is not set to SKIP_CHECKSUM, like with the -f/-F flags and source file already exists, then checksum will be checked again against the already downloaded file, and if it does not match, then package source will be re-downloaded and checksum re-checked. However, if checksum matches against the existing local file, then it will be used without downloading source again.
  • If package is being rebuilt and $TERMUX_PKG_SHA256 is set to SKIP_CHECKSUM, then package source will be re-downloaded every time and no checksum will be checked.
  • Any value for the $TERMUX_PKG_GIT_BRANCH variable in the build.sh of the package will be ignored.

• git+file:///path/to/source/git/dir URL path to a local git source directory where git+ is prefixed before file://, and the directory must contain a .git sub directory.

  • The directory path does not need to end with .git.
  • If a branch is set in the $TERMUX_PKG_GIT_BRANCH variable in the build.sh of the package, it will be checked out before building. Any uncommitted changes to the git branch WILL NOT get built.
  • If the source directory has been cloned already in a previous build, then it will NOT be cloned again, even if -f/-F flags are passed for rebuilds, and the -r flag WILL be required to clone the latest sources again/every time.
  • An additional requirement is that the local git repository must have its origin url in .git/config as a https URL instead of a ssh (git@) URL if running in termux-packages docker container and $TERMUX_PKG_GIT_BRANCH is set, as it doesn't have ssh installed by default and git fetch while downloading sources would fail otherwise. So if a local git repository needs to be cloned from an upstream git URL itself, like GitHub, then use https://github.com/org/repo.git to clone instead of git@github.com:org/repo.git. Or ssh can be installed inside the docker container and ssh keys set up manually.
  • No checksum checks will be done against the value set in $TERMUX_PKG_SHA256 variable of the build.sh file. To avoid confusion, the $TERMUX_PKG_SHA256 variable should be set to an empty string or SKIP_CHECKSUM.

Subpackage definitions are often used to move optional parts of installation to a separate packages. For example, some libraries come with utilities which may not be used by end user. Thus we can move these utilities to a separate package and reduce installation size in case when library package was installed as dependency.

Minimal subpackage script consist of the following fields:

TERMUX_SUBPKG_DESCRIPTION= # Sub-package description
TERMUX_SUBPKG_INCLUDE="" # List of files (either space or newline separated) to include in subpackage

Order above is preferred as include list may be long.

Subpackage script must be located in same directory as build.sh and have file name in the following format:

{subpackage name}.subpackage.sh

Note that its name cannot be same as of parent package.

Additional notes about subpackages:

• Subpackages always have version equal to parent package.
• Subpackages for static libraries are created automatically.

By default subpackage depends only on parent package with current version. This behaviour can be changed by setting variable $TERMUX_SUBPKG_DEPEND_ON_PARENT.

Allowed values are:

• deps - subpackage will depend on dependencies of parent package.
• unversioned - subpackage will depend on parent package without specified version.

Among with variables listed above (i.e. control fields), certain variables have special purpose and used internally by build-package.sh. They should not be modified in runtime unless there is a good reason.

• TERMUX_ON_DEVICE_BUILD - If set, assume that building on device.

• TERMUX_BUILD_IGNORE_LOCK - If set to true, ignore build process lock.

• TERMUX_BUILD_LOCK_FILE - Path to build process lock file.

• TERMUX_HOST_PLATFORM - Host platform definition. Usually $TERMUX_ARCH-linux-android.

• TERMUX_PKG_BUILDDIR - Path to build directory of current package.

• TERMUX_PKG_BUILDER_DIR - Path to directory where located build.sh of current package.

• TERMUX_PKG_BUILDER_SCRIPT - Path to build.sh of current package.

• TERMUX_PKG_CACHEDIR - Path to source cache directory of current package.

• TERMUX_PKG_MASSAGEDIR - Path to directory where package content will be extracted from $TERMUX__PREFIX.

• TERMUX_PKG_PACKAGEDIR - Path to directory where components of *.deb archive of current package will be created.

• TERMUX_PKG_SRCDIR - Path to source directory of current package.

• TERMUX_PKG_TMPDIR - Path to temporary directory specific for current package.

• TERMUX_COMMON_CACHEDIR - Path to global cache directory where build tools are stored.

• TERMUX_SCRIPTDIR - Path to directory with utility scripts.

• TERMUX_PKG_NAME - Name of current package.

• TERMUX_REPO_URL - Array of package repository URLs from which dependencies will be downloaded if build-package.sh got option -i or -I.

• TERMUX_REPO_DISTRIBUTION - Array of distribution names in addition for $TERMUX_REPO_URL.

• TERMUX_REPO_COMPONENT - Array of repository component names in addition for $TERMUX_REPO_URL.

• TERMUX_PACKAGE_FORMAT - Package output format.