Conary

Website: conary.io | Packages: remi.conary.io | Discussions: GitHub Discussions

Conary is a cross-distro package manager for Linux, written in Rust. It installs RPM, DEB, Arch, and native CCS packages on Fedora, Ubuntu, and Arch hosts: an RPM keeps exact RPM lifecycle and dependency semantics on Ubuntu or Arch, a DEB keeps exact Debian semantics on Fedora or Arch, and an Arch package keeps exact ALPM semantics on Fedora or Ubuntu — without invoking dnf, apt, or pacman.

Every change runs through one source-independent atomic transaction model, recorded as changesets over content-addressed storage, with immutable system generations for rollback and image export. The source package format defines the package ABI; Conary owns install, update, remove, and rollback; the target supplies an explicitly inventoried set of typed host capabilities.

The primary adoption path is cross-distro package installation. For packages already owned by dnf, apt, or pacman on an existing system, adoption remains available as a reversible migration bridge; those native package managers are not runtime authority for normal Conary-owned package operations.

Inspired by the original Conary from rPath, but this is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or maintained by rPath, SAS, or the original Conary developers.

Early Preview Warning

Conary is still early. Expect failures.

Use a VM or disposable host first. The current public preview is useful for testing cross-distro package installation, Remi conversion, exact transaction history, removal, and self-update. Adoption is the secondary migration lane for an existing system. Conary is not ready to run a critical system unattended.

The highest-risk failure class is source-package lifecycle execution. RPM, Debian, and ALPM expose finite documented transaction ABIs plus package-authored programs. Conary preserves those native slots, arguments, ordering, triggers, configuration semantics, and payload visibility, then executes them against typed target capabilities without invoking the source package manager. A missing model or capability is an engineering defect or an exact target preflight error—not a reason to guess semantics or route a package into an indefinite manual-review queue.

If you hit a failure, capture the command, distro, package name, Conary version, source package format, and exact error. For first-wave testing, use the agent-assisted tester loop and attach only a reviewed support bundle.

Try It

Release candidate v0.14.0 is not tester-authoritative until the release artifact matrix records its exact publication, checksums, deployment, and released-package proof. Do not download or install the candidate before that gate opens. Once verified, install it only on a VM or non-critical host.

Then choose a source whose package format differs from the host and run the complete bounded loop:

source=ubuntu-26.04  # Fedora/Arch hosts; use fedora-44 on Ubuntu
sudo conary repo list
sudo conary repo sync remi
sudo conary install htop --from "$source" --dry-run
sudo conary install htop --from "$source" --yes
sudo conary list htop --info
sudo conary query depends htop
sudo conary update htop --dry-run
sudo conary remove htop --yes

You can also pass a local RPM, DEB, or Arch artifact on any supported target:

sudo conary install ./package.rpm --dry-run
sudo conary install ./package.deb --dry-run
sudo conary install ./package.pkg.tar.zst --dry-run

Conary validates exact package-declared capabilities against the selected target during preflight and applies the executor-owned enforcement contract automatically. An unsupported declaration fails before mutation; there is no blanket capability-approval bypass.

The RPM, DEB, and Arch packages initialize the root-owned system database and all built-in RPM, DEB, and Arch source feeds during installation. The host distribution does not select which package ecosystems Conary may resolve.

To test reversible adoption without handing package ownership to Conary:

sudo conary system adopt --system --dry-run
sudo conary system adopt --system
sudo conary system adopt --status
sudo conary system unadopt --all --dry-run
sudo conary system unadopt --all --yes

Commands that change packages, files, generation state, or selected native authority require command-local apply intent with --yes. Use --dry-run first when the command supports it.

What Works Today

• Package-manager preview on Fedora 44, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, and Arch Linux.
• Source-independent installation of RPM, DEB, and Arch artifacts through typed native lifecycle, dependency, payload, and configuration contracts.
• Native package adoption and non-destructive unadoption.
• Installing CCS packages and converted RPM/DEB/Arch packages with Conary as package authority.
• Atomic package-state changesets, history, and rollback-oriented state tracking.
• Immutable EROFS/composefs generations on hosts with the needed kernel and tooling.
• Raw, qcow2, and x86_64 UEFI ISO generation export for validation workflows.
• Remi on-demand conversion, package search, sparse metadata, and public release/self-update serving.

What Will Break

• A package that needs a target capability the host does not provide fails exact preflight before mutation.
• Source lifecycle forms outside the implemented RPM, Debian, or ALPM ABI are bugs to model and test; Conary does not invent behavior from command text.
• Security-only updates fail closed unless a repository declares trusted advisory metadata support.
• Native transaction-history import is not implemented.
• Non-x86_64 generation boot assets are still reserved.
• The 0.13 schema hard cut is not readable by the 0.12 CCS self-update parser; install the 0.14 native package fresh instead of attempting that in-place update.
• SBOM/provenance sidecars are not published for the current preview suite.

Common Commands

# Install and inspect packages
sudo conary install nginx --dry-run
sudo conary install nginx --yes
sudo conary list
sudo conary list nginx --info
sudo conary list nginx --files
sudo conary query depends nginx
sudo conary query whatprovides 'soname(libssl.so.3)'

# Update Conary-owned packages
sudo conary update --dry-run
sudo conary update nginx --yes

# Build and select immutable generations
sudo conary system generation build --summary "After nginx setup" --yes
sudo conary system generation list
sudo conary system generation switch 1 --yes
sudo conary system generation rollback --yes

# Export a generation artifact
sudo conary system generation export --path /conary/generations/1 --format qcow2 --output gen1.qcow2
sudo conary system generation export --path /conary/generations/1 --format iso --output gen1.iso

# Self-update the CLI
sudo conary self-update --check
sudo conary self-update

The default conary --help shows the daily-driver commands. The full packaging/platform surface is listed by conary --help-advanced and in docs/guides/advanced-commands.md.

Architecture At A Glance

Conary is a virtual Rust workspace:

• apps/conary: package-manager CLI.
• crates/conary-core: package metadata, repository sync, resolver, transactions, scriptlets, database, CAS, generation, CCS, model, and bootstrap logic.
• apps/remi: public/admin package conversion and serving service.
• apps/conaryd: local daemon with Unix-socket REST/SSE scaffolding.
• apps/conary-test: integration-test harness.
• crates/conary-bootstrap, crates/conary-agent-contract, and crates/conary-mcp: shared runtime and automation support crates.

For the maintained architecture map, see docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.

Scale And Verification

Conary is a single-maintainer project, so the verification layer carries the weight that a team's review would otherwise carry.

First-party Rust	447,093 lines across 1,225 files, 8-crate workspace, edition 2024, Rust 1.96+
Unit tests	5,499 #[test] and #[tokio::test] functions
Integration tests	324 tests in 29 suites across 4 phases
Test targets	Real Fedora 44, Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, and Arch VMs driven by apps/conary-test
CI	7 GitHub Actions workflows: merge validation, PR gate, release build, release-artifact proof, deploy-and-verify, site deploy, scheduled ops
Lint gate	cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings and cargo fmt --check

Two of those deserve specific mention:

• Cross-distro proof runs on real hosts, not mocks. The integration harness boots Fedora, Ubuntu, and Arch VMs and exercises the same RPM, DEB, Arch, and CCS pipeline on each, because the claim being tested is that a package keeps its source semantics on a host whose native format differs. A mocked target cannot prove that.
• Documentation claims are gated by CI. scripts/check-doc-truth.sh fails the build when this README, the roadmap, the module docs, or the public websites claim something the code does not do. Release tags, install-command forms, and preview boundaries are all checked against the source tree. The cost of that is real: changing a public claim means changing the code or the check, not the prose.

Build From Source

Conary requires Rust 1.96+ on Linux.

git clone https://github.com/ConaryLabs/Conary.git
cd Conary
cargo build -p conary
sudo ./target/debug/conary system init

For an isolated non-root development database, pass a writable --db-path; subsequent commands must use the same path.

Useful verification commands:

cargo build -p conary
cargo build -p remi
cargo build -p conaryd
cargo build -p conary-test
cargo test -p conary
cargo test -p conary-core
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo fmt --check

Remi

Remi is Conary's public on-demand conversion service at remi.conary.io. It converts supported Fedora, Ubuntu, and Arch packages into CCS artifacts, serves public release metadata, and validates the exact source-format lifecycle contract carried by each converted artifact. There is no operator-review lane between conversion and serving.

Remi public serving is intentionally conservative while the scriptlet adapter surface matures. A package may fail even when the upstream package exists and downloads normally. Those failures are preview feedback, not proof that the package should be ignored.

See docs/modules/remi.md and docs/guides/self-hosted-remi.md for service details.

Documentation

• AGENTS.md: repo contract for coding agents.
• CONTRIBUTING.md: development setup and contribution flow.
• ROADMAP.md: current priorities.
• CHANGELOG.md: release history.
• docs/guides/agent-assisted-tester-loop.md: first-wave tester workflow.
• docs/operations/release-artifact-matrix.md: release artifact expectations.
• docs/ARCHITECTURE.md: system architecture.
• docs/INTEGRATION-TESTING.md: integration test harness and suites.
• docs/SCRIPTLET_SECURITY.md: scriptlet sandboxing and policy.

Community

• GitHub Discussions
• CONTRIBUTING.md

License

MIT