Open-source developer Matthias Klumpp wrote a blog post today outlining his recent work developing pkgcli, a new and modern command-line interface (CLI) around the PackageKit package management abstraction layer...

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pkgcli rinnova l’esperienza di PackageKit con comandi più intuitivi, output moderno e supporto JSON per automazione e scripting

Open-source developer Matthias Klumpp wrote a blog post today outlining his recent work developing pkgcli, a new and modern command-line interface (CLI) around the PackageKit package management abstraction layer...

For almost two decades, the PackageKit package management abstraction layer has shipped with pkcon as its command-line client. pkcon does its job, but it was always kind of a “testing” front-end for the PackageKit daemon rather than a tool designed for everyday use. The focus has instead been...

Open-source developer Matthias Klumpp wrote a blog post today outlining his recent work developing pkgcli, a new and modern command-line interface (CLI) around the PackageKit package management abstra...

For almost two decades, the PackageKit package management abstraction layer has shipped with `pkcon` as its command-line client. `pkcon` does its job, but it was always kind of a “testing” front-end for the PackageKit daemon rather than a tool designed for everyday use. The focus has instead been on the GUI tools, automatic system updates, GUI application managers and other front-ends. Its command names mirror the D-Bus API almost one-to-one (`get-details`, `get-updates`, `get-depends`), output is very plain, and there is no machine-readable mode for scripting. Most importantly though, there has been no development on it at all for almost a decade, so `pkcon` was stuck in its rudimentary state from that era. Since a lot of changes will be coming to PackageKit, and testing the daemon and working with it from the command-line was not very pleasant anymore in 2025/2026, I decided to modernize the tool as part of my work as fellow for the Sovereign Tech Agency last year. `pkgcli` is the new command-line client for PackageKit. It is built from the ground up to be pleasant to use interactively _and_ easy to drive from scripts. ## Why a new tool? Of course, instead of introducing a new tool, I could have just expanded `pkcon` instead. The problem with that approach is that the `pkcon` utility has been around for so long and its command-line API had ossified so much, that rather than changing it and potentially breaking a lot of scripts relying on its quirks, I decided to introduce a new tool instead. `pkcon` can still be optionally compiled for people who need it in their scripts and workflows. The goals for `pkgcli`, and the features it now has are: * **Human-friendly command names.** Verbs that read the way you’d describe the task, instead of mirroring the D-Bus API 1:1: `show`, `search`, `list-updates`, `what-provides`, instead of `get-details` and friends. * **Readable, colored output** by default (still respecting NO_COLOR and degrading gracefully). * **A real scripting mode.** A global `--json` flag emits JSONL instead of fully human-readable output when possible, to make it easier to use the tool for scripting purposes. * **Sensible defaults.** A few defaults have been changed, such as the metadata cache-age, or automatic cleanup of unused dependencies being enabled by default. This is more in line with current defaults by other tools and frontends. We also print package information in a slightly different, more readable way. * **Better handling of internationalized text**. Text should now align properly in the terminal window, and we should no longer have completely chaotic text output on non-English locales (especially Chinese/Japanese). ## Why not `pkgctl`? Originally, this tool was called `pkgctl`, to match other common cross-distro tool names. However, that name was already taken by an Arch-specific distro development tool. When this issue was raised, we decided to just rename our tool to `pkgcli` with the next release, to avoid the name clash on Arch Linux. ## Examples! Here are some examples on how to use the new tool (some of which include the abridged output `pkgcli` prints). Search for anything containing the string “editor” in name or description, then look at the details of one result: $ pkgcli search editor ▣ ace-of-penguins 1.5~rc2-7.amd64 [debian-testing-main] ▣ acorn-fdisk 3.0.6-14.amd64 [debian-testing-main] ▣ ardour 1:9.2.0+ds-1.amd64 [debian-testing-main] ✔ audacity 3.7.7+dfsg-1.amd64 [manual:debian-testing-main] ✔ audacity-data 3.7.7+dfsg-1.all [auto:debian-testing-main] ▣ augeas-tools 1.14.1-1.1.amd64 [debian-testing-main] ▣ emacs 1:30.2+1-3.all [debian-testing-main] ▣ gedit 48.1-9+b1.amd64 [debian-testing-main] ▣ gedit-common 48.1-9.all [debian-testing-main] ▣ gedit-dev 48.1-9+b1.amd64 [debian-testing-main] [...] $ pkgcli show nano Querying [████████████████████████████████████████] 100% Package: nano Version: 9.0-1 Summary: small, friendly text editor inspired by Pico Description: GNU nano is an easy-to-use text editor originally designed as a replacement for Pico, the ncurses-based editor from the non-free mailer package Pine. [...] URL: https://www.nano-editor.org/ Group: publishing Installed Size: 2.9 MB Download Size: 646.0 KB Search only within package _names_ rather than descriptions: $ pkgcli search name python3 Check for updates. `refresh` updates the metadata, then `list-updates` reports what’s available: $ pkgcli refresh && pkgcli list-updates Loading cache [████████████████████████████████████████] 100% ▲ cme 1.048-1.all [debian-testing-main] ▲ gir1.2-gdm-1.0 50.1-2.amd64 [debian-testing-main] ▲ imagemagick 8:7.1.2.24+dfsg1-1.amd64 [debian-testing-main] ▲ imagemagick-7-common 8:7.1.2.24+dfsg1-1.all [debian-testing-main] ▲ imagemagick-7.q16 8:7.1.2.24+dfsg1-1.amd64 [debian-testing-main] ▲ libdlrestrictions1 0.22.0.amd64 [debian-testing-main] ▲ libfftw3-bin 3.3.11-1.amd64 [debian-testing-main] ▲ libfftw3-dev 3.3.11-1.amd64 [debian-testing-main] Explore relationships between packages: $ pkgcli list-depends inkscape # list what inkscape depends on $ pkgcli list-requiring libappstream5 # list what requires libappstream5 Find the package that provides a capability, here the AV1 GStreamer decoder: $ pkgcli what-provides "gstreamer1(decoder-video/x-av1)" ✔ gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad 1.28.3-1.amd64 [auto:debian-testing-main] You can also have JSON output for most commands! Attach `--json` to any query and pipe the result straight into jq. Each line is a self-contained JSON object: $ pkgcli --json list-updates | jq -r '.name' cme gir1.2-gdm-1.0 imagemagick imagemagick-7-common imagemagick-7.q16 libdlrestrictions1 libfftw3-bin libfftw3-dev libfftw3-double3 ## Try it `pkgcli` is built by default alongside the rest of PackageKit since PackageKit 1.3.4. If your distribution ships a recent enough PackageKit, it should already be on your `PATH`. You can read its man page `man pkgcli` for more information. Feedback, bug reports, and patches are very welcome.