All versions since Shelly-ALPM v3.1.3 — A Little Housekeeping, a Lot of Building

Shelly-ALPM v3.1.3 — A Little Housekeeping, a Lot of Building

Sep 7, 2026

Shelly v3.1.3 gives your AUR cache a cleanup button, your AppImages their own environment settings, and the package builder another round of fixes for the PKGBUILDs you use every day.

There is plenty happening on the desktop, too: Flathub links take you to the app you wanted, package conflict prompts explain what is being removed, and the parallel download setting now does what it says. Behind the scenes, isolated builds gain Shelly’s own provisioning helper and new tools for build automation.

🧹 Give your AUR cache some breathing room

Built AUR packages can add up. You can now preview and remove those archives with --aur-cache:

# See what would be removed
shelly purify standard --aur-cache --dry-run

# Review and confirm the cleanup
shelly purify standard --aur-cache

This removes all built AUR package archives and their matching signatures from Shelly’s cache. Your PKGBUILDs, checkout history, sources, and build directories stay in place. You can also combine it with --cache to clean the standard package cache in the same command.

Prefer to handle cleanup yourself after upgrades? There is a setting for that:

shelly config set DisableCacheClean true

It skips the cleanup prompt and deletion during shelly upgrade all and its aliases. Cleanup remains enabled by default, and standalone shelly upgrade standard keeps its existing behavior.

🎛️ Your AppImages, your environment

Each installed AppImage can now have its own environment variables, configurable from the UI or CLI:

shelly config appimage "MyApp" --set-env "MY_VARIABLE=my-value"
shelly config appimage "MyApp" --unset-env "MY_VARIABLE"

Replace MyApp with the exact installed AppImage name. Overrides apply when launching from the desktop or through shelly run, and they survive AppImage updates. The CLI also supports clearing or replacing the full set of overrides.

StaticURL update checks now follow redirects correctly, too.

🏗️ More PKGBUILDs feeling at home

This release fixes several cases where valid package recipes could trip up Shelly’s native builder:

Fixed shell here-string and command-substitution parsing that could leave build wrapper scripts with syntax errors.
Added a consistent SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH throughout PKGBUILD evaluation, build steps, and package metadata.
Improved dependency planning for conditional arrays, architecture-specific dependencies, and split packages.
Improved archive detection and extraction, including extensionless archives.
Added standalone gzip/Unix compress, bzip2, xz, and zstd decompression before prepare(), respecting source aliases and noextract.
Fixed empty optional file assignments such as install='' being rejected as unsafe paths.
Failed binary stripping now produces a warning and keeps the original file. This fixes builds such as pi that include binaries the host’s strip tool cannot process.
Fixed source verification with multiple PGP signatures to follow signature-status handling, plus keyserver argument ordering during key imports.

🛠️ Shellystrap and build automation

Isolated builds now use shellystrap, Shelly’s own libalpm-based helper, to provision fresh build roots. This replaces the pacstrap dependency and keeps provisioning inside private namespaces.

Required public source-signing keys can now travel from the invoking user’s keyring into the isolated build. Reviewed-file staging, dependency checks against freshly synchronized private repository databases, and cancellation cleanup across privilege elevation have also been improved.

For automated builders, this release adds:

shelly --version --json for version and capability discovery.
JSON build review and result output, with review-digest validation.
Configurable package output destinations.
shelly resolve to map exact repository or AUR package names to package bases.

Using isolated builds? You need unshare from util-linux alongside systemd-nspawn. For unattended builds, import required source-signing keys into the invoking user’s keyring beforehand; --no-confirm does not approve missing-key imports.

✨ A smoother desktop

Flathub links open the right app, even if Shelly is already running or still loading its catalog. Flatpak reference files and AppStream links are handled, too.
Flatpak details gain uninstall controls, installed and verified indicators, better remote selection, and clearer loading feedback.
Conflict prompts name the packages involved, including which installed package will be removed and what replaces it.
Tray checks can follow your schedule with a cron mode that waits for the configured weekly time before the first check. Weekly scheduling also no longer depends on the symbolic tray icon setting.
Fixed the installed AUR view failing to restore correctly after a reload.
Improved dependency download progress, long package-name display, and error messages across the CLI, TUI, and GTK interface.
Support setup now skips dependencies you already have installed.

⚡ Parallel means parallel

Repository database and package downloads now respect ParallelDownloadCount. The setting accepts 1–255, with a default of 100. Older configurations with invalid values fall back to the default.

🌍 Translations and thanks

Italian and Simplified Chinese translations have been updated. Thank you to everyone contributing translations, reporting troublesome packages, and helping test the fixes in this release!

Full Changelog: v3.1.2…234f1e0a

Release pull request: #1876

v3.1.4 A slice of builds Latest

Sep 13, 2026

Shelly Pi 3.14 gives the native builder another round of fixes for real-world PKGBUILDs, adds a way to reclaim space from the AUR build cache, and makes package reviews easier to navigate.

There is plenty happening on the desktop, too: Flathub links open the app you wanted, package conflicts explain what will be removed, and package details are easier to read and copy. Behind the scenes, isolated builds gain Shelly’s own provisioning helper, stronger PGP support, and more reliable dependency handling.

🧹 Give your AUR cache some breathing room Built AUR packages can add up. You can now preview and remove cached build archives with –aur-cache, making it possible to recover disk space without manually digging through Shelly’s cache.

shelly purify standard –aur-cache

Standard purge behavior has also been corrected.

🏗️ A sturdier native builder The native builder now supports more complex PKGBUILDs and fixes failures involving SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH, install declarations, shell parsing, unsafe source paths, and sources that share the same filename.

Git sources are cloned from their original URLs, required files are detected more reliably, and regression tests cover the corrected behavior. Package-specific failures affecting Anydesk, Mandolin, Remora, and Pi have also been addressed.

🛠️ Shellystrap and isolated builds Isolated environments now use Shellystrap, Shelly’s own provisioning helper. Required PGP keys can be handed off to isolated builds, dependency handling has been improved, and systemd home-directory issues have been corrected.

🔍 Review upgrades your way AUR PKGBUILD reviews now support collapsed diffs, making large changes easier to navigate. Individual upgrades can also be reviewed separately before continuing.

Optional dependencies are handled more clearly, ignored packages remain visible in filtered lists, and conflict prompts identify which installed package will be removed.

✨ A smoother desktop experience Package columns now use ellipses instead of overflowing, while package-detail text can be selected and copied. Installation status updates display more reliably, and PGP key-import confirmations no longer crash the interface.

Flathub links open directly to the requested application, Flatpak pages show the correct installed and update versions, and dependency download progress is represented more accurately.

📦 AppImage, Flatpak, and tray improvements Each installed AppImage can now have its own environment variables, and StaticURL update checks correctly follow redirects.

Flatpak installation and update flows have been refined, including fixes for application selection and version display. The notification tray can now follow a cron schedule, and tray-service updates initiated from the CLI work correctly.

⚡ Downloads and package operations Parallel package and repository downloads now respect the configured setting. Package installation places –needed correctly, package status is updated more reliably, and command output uses clearer wording.

🌍 Translations This release updates the Simplified Chinese, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, and Japanese translations. It also introduces Azerbaijani translations for the UI and notification components.

❤️ Thank you, contributors! Thank you to everyone who contributed fixes, translations, testing, and improvements to this release:

@VinnyQF, @caroberrie, @ZoeyErinBauer, @azdanov, @square-235, @Mattyan89, @StKob, @jamalkamaladdin, and @utuhiro78.

A special welcome to first-time contributors @square-235, @StKob, and @jamalkamaladdin!