grimaur

grimaur is a lightweight AUR helper that searches, builds, and updates AUR packages. It uses the AUR RPC API and automatically falls back to the official git mirror when the endpoint is unavailable.

Tip

When the AUR is down, run commands with --git-mirror

For example: grimaur <package> --git-mirror to bypass the RPC entirely, this ensures higher uptimes.

Install

Directly from the AUR

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/grimaur-git.git
cd grimaur-git
makepkg -si

From the git mirror

git clone --branch grimaur-git --single-branch https://github.com/archlinux/aur.git grimaur-git
cd grimaur-git
makepkg -si

From Python directly

git clone https://github.com/ryk4rd/grimaur
cd grimaur
python grimaur <command>

Usage

Search Packages

• grimaur <term> (or grimaur search <term>) lists matching packages and lets you pick one to install.
• grimaur list to see installed "foreign" packages recognized by pacman -Qm

Note

You can use grimaur fetch <package> to inspect PKGBUILD and source code before manually installing using makepkg or similar.

Even see it directly: python grimaur inspect brave-bin --target PKGBUILD Also accepts: SRCINFO

Inspect & Install & Remove Packages

• grimaur inspect <package> --full Shows full depends
• grimaur install <package> clones the repo, resolves dependencies, builds with makepkg
  • Pass --noconfirm to skip confirmation prompts during the build/install steps.
  • Pass --git-mirror to skip AUR RPC
• grimaur remove <package> to uninstall from pacman
  • Pass --remove-cache to delete cached files too

Stay Updated

• grimaur update rebuilds every installed “foreign” package that has a newer release.
  • Pass --global to update system first, then AUR packages
• grimaur update <pkg1> <pkg2> limits the update run to specific packages.
• grimaur update --devel Update all *-git packages aswell (needed for grimaur-git for example).
• Combine with --refresh to force a fresh pull of every tracked package.
• Respects IgnorePkg = x y z from /etc/pacman.conf

Additional Options

• Useful for scripting on top of Grimaur
  • --no-color disables colored terminal output
  • grimaur search <term> --limit 10 limits results to the first N matches
  • grimaur search <term> --no-interactive lists results without prompting to install
• Force grimaur fetch <package> --force reclones even if the directory exists
• Regex matcher example: python grimaur search "brave.*-bin" --regex --no-interactive