aur-rpc

name	aur-rpc
description	Query the Aurweb RPC interface (v5) to search AUR packages, retrieve package info, and consume the metadata archives. Use when building an AUR helper, verifying upstream state, bulk-fetching package metadata, or integrating with the AUR programmatically.
license	MIT

Skill: aur-rpc

Purpose

Interact with the Aurweb RPC interface — the lightweight JSON HTTP API that powers yay, paru, the AUR web search, and most third-party tooling.

Base URL: https://aur.archlinux.org/rpc/v5/

Query Types

Two endpoint shapes:

Search

GET /rpc/v5/search/<keyword>?by=<field>

by field	Meaning
name-desc (default)	Match against Name and Description
name	Match against Name only
maintainer	Match against Maintainer (empty → orphan list)
comaintainers	Match against comaintainer usernames
depends	Packages whose Depends contains the keyword
makedepends	Packages whose MakeDepends contains the keyword
optdepends	Packages whose OptDepends contains the keyword
checkdepends	Packages whose CheckDepends contains the keyword
provides	Packages whose Provides contains the keyword
conflicts	Packages whose Conflicts contains the keyword
replaces	Packages whose Replaces contains the keyword
groups	Match against Groups
submitter	Match against the submitter username

Info

GET /rpc/v5/info?arg[]=<pkg1>&arg[]=<pkg2>&...

URL-encode the brackets as %5B%5D when calling by hand.

Response Envelope

Every response is JSON with the same shape:

{
  "version": 5,
  "type": "search" | "multiinfo" | "error",
  "resultcount": 0,
  "results": [...]
}

type: "error" includes an additional "error": "..." string.

Fields

Always returned (search and multiinfo)

Field	Type	Meaning
ID	int	Per-package ID
Name	str	Package name (within its base)
PackageBaseID	int	Base ID
PackageBase	str	Base name (used in URLs, git clones, requests)
Version	str	Current pkgver-pkgrel
Description	str	pkgdesc
URL	str	Upstream URL
NumVotes	int	Vote count
Popularity	float	Popularity score
OutOfDate	int | null	Unix timestamp if flagged out-of-date, else null
Maintainer	str | null	null if orphaned
FirstSubmitted	int	Unix timestamp
LastModified	int	Unix timestamp
URLPath	str	Snapshot URL fragment: /cgit/aur.git/snapshot/<pkgbase>.tar.gz

multiinfo only

Field	Type
Depends	string[]
MakeDepends	string[]
OptDepends	string[]
CheckDepends	string[]
Conflicts	string[]
Provides	string[]
Replaces	string[]
Groups	string[]
License	string[]
Keywords	string[]

Fields a package doesn't have are omitted (not present as null).

JSONP

Append ?callback=<name> to wrap the response in a JS function call. Useful from browser-side code only.

Limits

• HTTP GET URI: max 8190 bytes (nginx with HTTP/2 enforces 4443 bytes)
• Search keyword: min 2 characters
• Search returns truncated at 5000 results
• Rate limit: 4000 requests/day per IP
• info with >200 packages needs to be split

Metadata Archives (Bulk)

For repeated bulk queries, prefer the gzipped metadata archives — much friendlier to the AUR than thousands of RPC calls. All live at https://aur.archlinux.org/<archive>.gz, refreshed ~every 5 minutes.

Archive	Format
packages.gz	One package name per line
pkgbase.gz	One package base per line
users.gz	One username per line
packages-meta-v1.json.gz	Full type=search JSON for every package
packages-meta-ext-v1.json.gz	Full type=multiinfo JSON (with all relation fields)

Supports Last-Modified and ETag — use them for incremental updates.

Examples

# Search for packages matching "neovim"
curl 'https://aur.archlinux.org/rpc/v5/search/neovim'

# Info for multiple packages (URL-encoded brackets)
curl 'https://aur.archlinux.org/rpc/v5/info?arg%5B%5D=yay&arg%5B%5D=paru'

# Out-of-date packages maintained by a user (search then filter)
curl 'https://aur.archlinux.org/rpc/v5/search/?by=maintainer' \
  | jq '.results[] | select(.OutOfDate != null) | {Name, OutOfDate, Version}'

# Bulk fetch — use the metadata archive once per refresh
curl -O https://aur.archlinux.org/packages-meta-ext-v1.json.gz

Reference Implementation

The Arch Wiki links to canonical Python clients. For new helpers, prefer:

• Batch with the metadata archive, then fall back to RPC for individual package deltas
• Cache aggressively (ETag / Last-Modified)
• Respect the 4000/day rate limit — back off on HTTP 429

Related

• aur-helpers — clients built on top of this API
• aur-audit — uses RPC to verify OutOfDate, popularity, votes before flagging
• aur-submission — URLPath is the snapshot download link for non-git clients
• Full spec: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Aurweb_RPC_interface
• Swagger: https://aur.archlinux.org/rpc/swagger