NAME

       appstreamcli - Handle AppStream metadata and the AppStream index

SYNOPSIS

       appstreamcli [COMMAND]

DESCRIPTION

       This manual page documents briefly the appstreamcli command.

       appstreamcli is a small helper tool to work with AppStream metadata and access the
       AppStream component index from the command-line. The AppStream component index contains a
       list of all available software components for your distribution, matched to their package
       names. It is generated using AppStream XML or Debian DEP-11 data, which is provided by
       your distributor.

       For more information about the AppStream project and the other components which are part
       of it, take a look at the AppStream pages at Freedesktop.org[1].

OPTIONS

       status
           Display various information about the installed metadata and the metadata cache.

       get ID
           Get a component by it's identifier.

       s, search TERM
           Search the AppStream component database for a given search term.

       what-provides TYPE TERM
           Return components which provide a given item. An item type can be specified using the
           TYPE parameter, a value to search for has to be supplied using the TERM parameter.

           Examples:

           Get components which handle the "text/xml" mimetype.

           appstreamcli what-provides mimetype "text/xml"

           Get component which provides the "libfoo.so.2" library.

           appstreamcli what-provides lib libfoo.so.2

       refresh, refresh-cache
           Trigger a database refresh, if necessary. In case you want to force the database to be
           rebuilt, supply the --force flag.

           This command must be executed with root permission.

       dump ID
           Dump the XML description of a component with the given ID.

       validate FILES
           Validate AppStream XML metadata for compliance with the specification.

           Both XML metadata types, upstream and distro XML, are handled. The filetype which
           should be validated is determined automatically.

           The --pedantic flag triggers a more pedantic validation of the file, including minor
           and style issues in the report.

       validate-tree DIRECTORY
           Validate AppStream XML metadata found in a file-tree.

           This performs a standard validation of all found metadata, but also checks for
           additional errors, like the presence of .desktop files and validity of other
           additional metadata.

       install ID
           Install a software component by its ID.

           This resolves the AppStream component ID to the package name which provides it and
           then calls the distribution's package manager to install the software.

           This feature is experimental.

       put FILE
           Install a metadata file into the right directory on the current machine.

       new-template TYPE FILE
           Create a metainfo file template to be used by software projects. The --from-desktop
           option can be used to use a .desktop file as template for generating the example file.

           The generated files contain example entries which need to be filed in with the actual
           desired values by the project author.

           The first TYPE parameter is the name of an AppStream component type. For a complete
           list check out the documentation[2] or the help output of appstreamcli for this
           subcommand.

       --details
           Print out more information about a found component.

       --no-color
           Don't print colored output.

       --no-net
           Do not access the network when validating metadata.

           The same effect can be achieved by setting the AS_VALIDATE_NONET environment variable
           before running appstreamcli.

       --version
           Display the version number of appstreamcli

SEE ALSO

       pkcon (1).

AUTHOR

       This manual page was written by Matthias Klumpp <matthias@tenstral.net>.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2012-2016 Matthias Klumpp

NOTES

        1. Freedesktop.org
           http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Distributions/AppStream/

        2. the documentation
           https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/chap-Metadata.html