Arch Linux AUR Scraper — Package Metadata, Dependencies & Votes

Extract comprehensive package metadata from the Arch Linux User Repository (AUR) using the official public RPC API. This Actor retrieves package names, versions, maintainers, vote counts, popularity scores, dependencies, licenses, and keywords for any search query. No authentication or proxy is required.

The AUR is the largest community-driven package repository for Arch Linux and its derivatives (Manjaro, EndeavourOS, Garuda Linux). Whether you are tracking software versions, auditing dependencies, monitoring package maintenance, or building a Linux software directory, this Actor delivers structured data in seconds.

Use Cases

• Package Discovery & Inventory — Build a searchable catalog of AUR packages for a Linux distribution or software directory.
• Version Tracking & Security Auditing — Monitor package versions, last modified dates, and out-of-date flags to identify unmaintained or stale software.
• Dependency Analysis — Extract depends, makeDepends, optDepends, and conflicts to map software dependency trees.
• Maintainer Research — Identify active maintainers and popular packages by votes and popularity score.
• Competitive Intelligence — Track which tools are trending in the Arch Linux ecosystem.

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
searchQuery	String	Yes	Package name or keyword to search (e.g., "yay", "nvidia", "browser").
maxResults	Integer	No	Maximum packages to return (default: 100, max: 5000).
includeDetails	Boolean	No	Fetch additional details (dependencies, licenses, keywords) via the info endpoint (default: true).
proxyConfiguration	Object	No	Proxy settings for requests.

Output

The Actor outputs a dataset with the following fields:

{
  "name": "yay",
  "packageBase": "yay",
  "packageBaseId": 115973,
  "version": "13.0.1-1",
  "description": "Yet another yogurt. Pacman wrapper and AUR helper written in go.",
  "url": "https://github.com/Jguer/yay",
  "urlPath": "/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/yay.tar.gz",
  "maintainer": "jguer",
  "submitter": "jguer",
  "numVotes": 2604,
  "popularity": 47.23716,
  "firstSubmitted": 1475688004,
  "lastModified": 1781905288,
  "outOfDate": null,
  "depends": ["pacman>6.1", "git"],
  "makeDepends": ["go>=1.24"],
  "optDepends": ["sudo", "doas"],
  "checkDepends": [],
  "conflicts": [],
  "provides": [],
  "replaces": [],
  "license": ["GPL-3.0-or-later"],
  "keywords": ["arm", "AUR", "go", "helper", "pacman", "wrapper", "x86"],
  "id": 2131240,
  "searchQuery": "yay"
}

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.001 per package extracted (minimum charge: 1 package).

Limitations

• The AUR RPC API does not support pagination. Large result sets are truncated client-side using maxResults.
• Search queries must be non-empty. If left blank, the Actor falls back to a default search.
• Rate limiting is not documented for the AUR RPC API; excessive volume may trigger temporary blocks.
• Package details (includeDetails) require a secondary API call per batch. Disabling this speeds up runs for large result sets.

FAQ

Q: Do I need an Arch Linux account or API key? A: No. The AUR RPC API is completely public and requires no authentication.

Q: Can I search by maintainer instead of package name? A: The AUR RPC search endpoint searches by package name and description. Maintainer-specific filtering is not supported by the API.

Q: What does the outOfDate field mean? A: If non-null, it is a Unix timestamp indicating when the package was flagged as out-of-date by a user. null means the package is up-to-date.

Q: Why is popularity a decimal? A: AUR popularity is a weighted score based on votes and usage patterns, calculated by the Arch Linux infrastructure.

Changelog

• v1.0.0 — Initial release. Search and detail extraction via AUR RPC API v5.