Sven

Sven is the package manager for Seven OS — a Linux From Scratch (LFS) based distribution. It bridges two worlds: the convenience of a real repository-backed package manager (à la pacman), and the reality of a hand-built, non-systemd LFS/BLFS system.

Concretely, Sven:

• Resolves and installs packages from the official Arch repos + AUR
• Filters out systemd-only dependencies so packages stay installable on SysVinit/OpenRC hosts, suggesting non-systemd alternatives where one exists
• Tracks everything it installs in a local package database, with rollback snapshots for safe undos
• Can adopt software you already built by hand from LFS/BLFS — so you don't have to start your package-managed history from zero
• Leans on a small C core (libsven) for the hot paths — version comparison, dependency resolution, systemd filtering, topological sort, and (when libarchive-dev is available) extraction — with safe pure-Python fallbacks for everything else

How this project is built

Sven is architected by a human, coded by AI. Harold (HANS BYTE) designs the system — the package format strategy, the systemd-filtering approach, the adoption heuristics, what tradeoffs are acceptable for an LFS-targeted tool — and directs an AI coding assistant to implement, test, and harden it against that design. Every change ships after the human has reviewed the reasoning and the AI has verified the behavior, not just written code that looks plausible.

This isn't a disclaimer, it's how the project actually gets built — and it's worth saying plainly so nobody has to guess.

Quick install

git clone https://github.com/HaroldMth/sven.git
cd sven
sudo bash install.sh

This checks your tools, lays out /etc/sven, /var/lib/sven, /var/cache/sven, installs the sven binary, syncs package databases, then runs the LFS/BLFS adoption helpers (in that order — adoption needs synced data to match against, so it always runs last).

See INSTALL.md for prerequisites, manual installation, troubleshooting, and what each install path (install.sh, bootstrap.sh, PKGBUILD) is actually for.

Installer options

sudo bash install.sh --help

Flag	What it does
--sven-version <ver>	Install a specific Sven release (e.g. 1.2.0) instead of latest
--skip-adopt	Skip both adoption scripts entirely
--no-sync / --quick	Skip the database sync (adoption will then also be skipped — it needs synced data)
-v, --verbose	Full command tracing, timings, environment summary

Checking your system

sven doctor       # full health check: paths, DBs, GPG, network, C library status
sven preflight     # quick check before you've even installed anything

doctor tells you things like whether the fast C extractor is active or you're on the Python fallback, whether your sync DBs exist, and whether required Python modules are present. Run it any time something feels off.

Command reference

Package management

Command	What it does
sven install <pkg...>	Install one or more packages
sven install <pkg> --version <ver>	Install a specific available version
sven remove <pkg...>	Remove packages
sven upgrade	Upgrade all installed packages
sven upgrade --skip-aur	Upgrade without checking AUR — skips the network round-trip to the AUR RPC for every installed AUR package
sven update	Sync databases, then upgrade (like pacman -Syu)
sven update --skip-aur	Same, but skip the AUR check too
sven sync	Refresh package databases only
sven search <query>	Search official repos + AUR
sven info <pkg>	Show package metadata
sven list	List installed packages
sven path <pkg>	Show install path / owned files

Version & info

Command	What it does
sven version	Show Sven's own version + detected runtime tool versions
sven check-version <pkg>	Compare installed vs. sync vs. AUR vs. cache versions
sven deps <pkg>	Show the dependency tree
sven rdeps <pkg>	Show what depends on a package (reverse deps)
sven cnf <command>	"Command not found" lookup — which package provides this?

Maintenance & safety

Command	What it does
sven doctor [--offline]	Full system health check
sven preflight	Quick pre-install environment check
sven clean	Clear the package cache
sven verify	Verify installed package integrity
sven orphans	List packages nothing depends on anymore
sven adopt-installed	Reconcile installed DB entries into the local cache
sven snapshots	List rollback snapshots
sven rollback	Undo the last operation

Mirrors

Command	What it does
sven mirror list	Show configured mirrors
sven mirror fastest	Benchmark mirrors, pick the fastest for this session
sven mirror rank	Benchmark and persist a ranked mirrorlist

Self-management

Command	What it does
sven check-update	Check whether a newer Sven release exists
sven self-update	Download and install the latest Sven release
sven self-remove	Completely uninstall Sven from this system

Adoption scripts

These register software you already built by hand into Sven's local database, so Sven knows about it without you reinstalling anything.

• scripts/adopt_lfs.py — registers the ~40 core LFS base packages (glibc, bash, coreutils, binutils, etc.). For each one it verifies the package is actually present, detects its real version (via --version probing, header macros for header-only libs like zlib, or pkg-config), and records the real files it owns for conflict detection. Where no reliable version source exists at all (filesystem, ca-certificates, linux-firmware), it's honest about that — it marks the version unverified rather than guessing, and Sven will skip version-constraint checks for that package rather than comparing nonsense.

• scripts/adopt_blfs.py — scans your filesystem for binaries, libraries, .pc files, and headers, then matches them against the synced Arch package database to guess what you've already built. A package is only adopted if it has one strong signal (an exact binary-name match) or signals from at least two independent categories — a single coincidental library-name match is no longer enough on its own. Where possible it cross-checks the matched version against a live --version probe of the real binary; otherwise it's marked unverified rather than trusting the heuristic match blindly.

PYTHONPATH=. python3 scripts/adopt_lfs.py --dry-run
PYTHONPATH=. python3 scripts/adopt_blfs.py --min-score 8 --dry-run
PYTHONPATH=. python3 scripts/adopt_blfs.py -y

Both scripts require a successful sven sync first — adopt_lfs.py doesn't strictly need it, but adopt_blfs.py matches against the synced database and will refuse to run without it. install.sh already runs them in the correct order automatically.

Paths

What	Where
Config	/etc/sven/
Databases (sync + installed + snapshots)	/var/lib/sven/
Package cache	/var/cache/sven/
Logs	/var/log/sven/

Performance: the C core

Hot-path logic lives in libsven/ (C) and is loaded via ctypes from sven/libsven.py: version comparison, dependency-string parsing, systemd classification, topological sort, and — when libarchive-dev is present at build time — package extraction. Every function has a pure-Python fallback, so Sven works even on a system without a C toolchain; it's just faster with one. Run sven doctor to see which path you're actually on.

More

• INSTALL.md — prerequisites, manual install, troubleshooting
• CONTRIBUTIONS.md — dev setup, building from source