Snapcraft quickstart

This quickstart how-to will guide you through the steps required to create, build and publish your own snap package with the snapcraft command line tool.

The purpose of this how-to is to provide Linux developers, packagers, and users with a basic and intermediate knowledge of how to package applications as snaps. It covers the following:

• an overview of the snap ecosystem
• a detailed explanation of the Snapcraft tool and its usage
• the syntax and components of the build recipe for snaps (the snapcraft.yaml file)
• the process of uploading a built snap into the Snap Store

Here’s what you need

• a basic understanding of Linux and the command line
• Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, or later, installed
• 10GB of free storage space
• access to the internet

The above requirements are specific to this tutorial. Other distributions can be used, and other platforms are supported. See Installing snapd for details.

Step-by-step guide

1. Snapcraft installation and setup
   • Installation from the Snap Store
   • Repository version or snap
   • Snapcraft LXD and Multipass backends
2. How Snapcraft builds a snap
   • snapcraft.yaml
     • Main definitions inside snapcraft.yaml
   • Snapcraft build lifecycle
   • Snapcraft build output
3. Basic snapcraft.yaml example
   • Metadata
   • Base
   • Confinement
     • Interfaces
   • Build definition
     • The parts definition
     • The apps definition
4. Intermediate snapcraft.yaml example
   • adopt-info
   • grade
   • architectures
   • Build definition
     • The parts definition
     • The apps definition
5. Build and publishing example
   • Snap build process
   • Snap publication process
   • Snap Store channels
   • Next steps

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Last updated 2 years ago.