flatpak-builder-lint is a linter for flatpak-builder manifests, and more widely, also Flatpak builds. It is primarily developed for Flathub, but can be useful for other Flatpak repositories.

The only supported ways to install and use it are Docker and Flatpak.

The latest build of flatpak-builder-linter can be used with Docker.

docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/flathub/flatpak-builder-lint:latest

You may need to pass the local data using --volume to check the chosen file or repo.

flatpak-builder-lint is part of the org.flatpak.Builder flatpak package available on Flathub. Set up Flatpak first, then install org.flatpak.Builder:

flatpak install flathub -y org.flatpak.Builder
flatpak run --command=flatpak-builder-lint org.flatpak.Builder --help

The flatpak package tracks the git commit currently used on the Flathub infrastructure.

Installing flatpak-builder-lint locally with Poetry or pip is not recommended unless for development purposes. It depends on patches that are found in the org.flatpak.Builder flatpak package and on external tools.

git clone https://github.com/flathub/flatpak-builder-lint
cd flatpak-builder-lint
poetry install 
poetry run flatpak-builder-lint --help

Additional tools are required by subcommands and checks:

• flatpak-builder for validating flatpak-builder manifests,
• ostree for validating ostree repositories containing builds,
• appstreamcli from org.flatpak.Builder for validating MetaInfo files,
• desktop-file-validate to validate desktop files.

usage: flatpak-builder-lint [-h] [--version] [--exceptions] [--appid APPID] [--cwd] [--ref REF] {builddir,repo,manifest,appstream} path

A linter for Flatpak builds and flatpak-builder manifests

positional arguments:
  {builddir,repo,manifest,appstream}
                        type of artifact to lint
  path                  path to artifact

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  --exceptions          skip allowed warnings or errors
  --appid APPID         override app ID
  --cwd                 override the path parameter with current working directory
  --ref REF             override the primary ref detection

If you consider the detected issues incorrect, please report it here: https://github.com/flathub/flatpak-builder-lint

A list of errors and warnings and their explanations are available in the Flatpak builder lint page.