ArchWeaver

Your One-Stop Shop for AUR and Arch Linux Package Management

ArchWeaver is an interactive, full-stack visual management console and live build simulator for the Arch Linux AUR and system-wide package repositories. The application operates as a highly responsive dashboard powered by an Express/Node static server proxying a custom Rust background REST API, enabling real-time secure communication with the standard Arch Linux AUR RPC API.

🌟 Key Features & Architecture

• Real-Time AUR Database Proxy: Connects directly to the public aur.archlinux.org RPC API to execute searches, fetch votes, track popularity curves, and automatically resolve transitive dependencies.
• Interactive Sandbox & Makepkg Build Simulator: Runs a realistic mock build pipeline visualization that logs dependency resolutions, source retrievals, SHA256 integrity checks, and native compile routines step-by-step inside the visual CLI terminal.
• Dynamic Dependency Graphs: Intellectually scans package files to build visual trees mapping make-time vs run-time dependencies.
• System Health Monitor Widgets: Displays real-time charts capturing CPU metrics, running processes, memory limits, and pending database package updates.
• CACHED Package Version Rollback: Allows power-users to inspect previous system compilation histories and securely roll back unstable software packages to earlier cached builds.
• Power-User CLI Dashboard (Terminal Mode): Hosts a functional sandboxed shell supporting standard syntax (yay -S, yay -Syu, pacman -R, and others) that synchronously updates the underlying database index.
• Cosmic Slate Aesthetics: Features an immersive high-contrast twilight visual theme utilizing Inter and JetBrains Mono typography, custom animations, and clean responsive layouts.

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🚀 Running via Standalone AppImage

The easiest way to run stable ArchWeaver as a client on any modern Linux environment without pre-installing runtime servers is to compile or execute the native, self-contained AppImage.

1. Build the Desktop AppImage

Ensure you have NPM and internet access available on your build machine (on Arch Linux: sudo pacman -S --needed npm curl tar xz unzip). Run the automated builder script:

# Grant execution rights to the packager
chmod +x ./scripts/build-appimage.sh

# Run the packager to build the standalone AppImage
./scripts/build-appimage.sh

This automates the following steps:

1. Compiles the modern React assets in production mode.
2. Bundles the custom background Python server.
3. Retrieves and sets up a stable, isolated Electron GUI wrapper.
4. Generates a standalone, double-clickable ArchWeaver-x86_64.AppImage executable.

2. Execute the AppImage

After compiling, the file ArchWeaver-x86_64.AppImage will appear in the directory root. To execute:

# Grant execution rights to the AppImage
chmod +x ArchWeaver-x86_64.AppImage

# Launch the standalone desktop application
./ArchWeaver-x86_64.AppImage

💡 Auto Desktop Shortcut/Menu Integration: On its very first run, the AppImage automatically integrates itself into your host's local system directories (~/.local/bin and ~/.local/share/applications/), adding a fully styled launcher icon to your system menus so you can boot ArchWeaver directly from your application dashboard at any time.

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🛠️ Developer Local Manual Setup (Bare-Metal Mod Mode)

If you are developing or editing ArchWeaver itself, you can run the UI dev-server and API backend side-by-side using Node and Rust:

1. Install Dependencies

Node.js & npm packages:

# Install NPM packaging modules and packages
npm install

Rust toolchain (required for backend):

# Install Rust using rustup (if not already installed)
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

# Then in your shell:
source $HOME/.cargo/env

2. Build Rust Backend

# Build the Rust backend (debug mode for development)
cargo build

# Or build the optimized release version
cargo build --release

3. Start the Application

Run the bare-metal development pipeline with Rust backend and direct Arch/AUR mock services:

# Terminal 1: Start the Rust backend (if not auto-started)
./target/debug/archweaver_server

# Terminal 2 (separate terminal): Start Vite development server
npm run dev

ℹ️ Automatic Backend Startup: When you run npm run dev, the Express server will automatically spawn the Rust backend if the binary exists.

⚠️ Sudo Permission Notice: When running pacman integrity queries or packages, the under-the-hood Makepkg and helper scripts may request sudo permissions. Ensure that you enter your password when requested in the terminal launcher.

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🐳 Running via Containerized Docker

You can also package and run the application inside a multi-stage Alpine-based Docker container.

1. Build the Docker Image:

docker build -t archweaver .

2. Run the Containerized Application:

docker run -p 3000:3000 archweaver

Once started, the application will be accessible inside your browser at http://localhost:3000.

Tauri

You can run the desktop app in development with the Vite dev server using:

npm run tauri:dev

Build the native bundle with:

npm run tauri:build

(Requires @tauri-apps/cli installed globally or as a dev dependency.)