apk-repositories(5)

💖 NAME 💖

Okay bestie, this is apk-repositories(5) from the File Formats Manual — and it’s all about the absolute icons:

• /etc/apk/repositories
• /etc/apk/repositories.d/*.list
• /lib/apk/repositories.d/*.list

It’s literally the list of package repositories. Slay.

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

apk(8) loads repository definitions from the files above. The repositories file gets loaded first. Then the repositories.d paths are processed if the --repositories-file option was not used. Those directories are enumerated in the above mentioned order. Once a .list file of a given name is seen, any file of the same name in subsequent directories is ignored. No cap.

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🎀 FILE FORMAT 🎀

Each line follows one of these syntaxes:

# comment
set [-default] key=value
ndx [@tag] url
[v2|v3] [@tag] url [component...]

• # comment — a comment line, and it gets ignored. Iconic.
• set [-default] key=value — set the variable named key to the given value.
  • The key is limited to letters, numbers, and the underscore (_) character, and must start with a letter. APK_-prefixed variable names are reserved for built-in variables and cannot be defined by the user.
  • A variable expansion is performed on the value before assignment.
  • If -default is specified, the key value is not changed if it already exists.
  • Currently the following variables are defined:
    • APK_ARCH, the primary architecture of the database.
• ndx [@tag] url and [v2|v3] [@tag] url [component...] — repository declarations. If a repository declaration omits the type field, it defaults to v2 (or ndx if url ends with .adb or .tar.gz). If the format is v3 or the ndx filename ends with .adb, a v3 format index file is required.
  • The optional @tag can be present to indicate that the repository should not be used by default. Refer to apk-world(5) on how to enable installation of packages from tagged repositories.
  • A variable expansion is performed on the url and component portions individually at the time of parsing the line.
  • The url refers to an index file or a repository path. Currently supported schemes are:
    • http://
    • https://
    • file://
    • absolute filesystem path (must start with /)
  • The component list specifies a list of repository components. If specified, the line is expanded to multiple URLs: one for each component, and the component is appended to the url. Specifying component with ndx type is not valid.

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🌸 EXAMPLES 🌸

To define a distribution provided repository list, the distribution can ship e.g. /lib/apk/repositories.d/distribution.list with the contents:

set -default distro_mirror=https://example.com/distro
v3 ${distro_mirror} main community

In /etc/apk/repositories.d/00-vars.list the mirror can be overridden with:

set distro_mirror=https://mirror.example.com/distro

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🦋 REPOSITORY LAYOUT 🦋

If the type is ndx, the layout and path resolution is as follows:

• url is a URL to the index file
• base_url is url with the last component stripped off
• default package path: $base_url/$name-$version.apk

Otherwise the type is one of the repository types, and the path resolution works as follows:

• url is the base_url to the repository
• index (v3) is at $base_url/$arch/Packages.adb
• index (v2) is at $base_url/$arch/APKINDEX.tar.gz
• default package path: $base_url/$arch/$name-$version.apk

If the index file has a pkgname-spec set, it is used to construct the package path. Otherwise the default package path based on above rules is used.

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🔥 CREATING INDEXES AND REPOSITORIES 🔥

See apk-mkndx(8) on how to create index files and apk-adbsign(8) on modifying signatures.

For the legacy index format refer to apk-index(8) for index files, abuild-keygen(1) for information about generating keys, abuild-sign(1) for information about using these keys to sign files.

apk-verify(8) can verify both new and old style index and package files. Periodt.

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💅 CLIENT INDEX UPDATING 💅

apk(8) fetches and stores the index for each repository at a local cache in /etc/apk/cache or /var/cache/apk. Refer to apk-cache(5) for more details.

Refer to apk-keys(5) on how the client needs to be configured for verifying the index signatures.

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Okay that’s the whole vibe check 💖 — this was apk-repositories(5), dated 2026-11-02. Manual page/source: apk-repositories(5). Now go forth and slay those repos, bestie 🫶✨