Kama (窯)

Kama — the kiln — is the package manager for Keru OS.

It's a single shell script (plus a small library) that builds packages from source by executing their recipes. It is deliberately minimal: there is no dependency resolver, no package database, and no binary format. Kama reads a make.conf, and it runs whatever each recipe tells it to.

Why shell?

Kama is the whole point of Keru stated plainly: the package manager shouldn't be more complex than the packages it builds. It's not a program that manages packages as much as a runner for recipe scripts — the clever part lives in the recipes, not the mangement machinery.

Usage

kama fetch   <pkg>   download + extract source into the cache
kama build   <pkg>   stage-build one package
kama install <pkg>   build + install into $ROOT
kama make    <pkg>   fetch deps, build, install, purge temp deps (AUR-style)
kama purge            remove temp build-time deps
kama info    <pkg>   show recipe metadata

Configuration

Kama reads a make.conf (default /etc/kama/make.conf) for global build flags and profile choices. Key variables:

ROOT — target rootfs the packages install into
CACHEDIR — persistent source + build cache
CFLAGS / MAKEFLAGS — passed to every build
PKGDIR — where the recipe repository lives (default: sibling kama-packages)

Recipes

Packages are plain POSIX shell scripts. The syntax splits into two tiers:

Easy tier — declare name, version, url, then a build() and install(). Kama handles fetch + extract automatically.
Advanced tier — override pkg_fetch, add pkg_post, pkg_split, provides, conflicts, arch, etc.

See the recipe format in the KeruOS repo for the full spec.

Dependencies

Dependencies are handled AUR-style: build-time deps are fetched, compiled, and stripped away once the real package is built, leaving only what the system needs. This is the foundation of Keru's "nothing you didn't ask for" ethos.

License

AGPL-3.0

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