📦 nog

A tier-aware package manager for Arch Linux — pacman with a safety net, written in Rust.

Why nog?

Arch Linux is fast, current, and beautifully simple. But rolling releases treat every package the same — when an update is available, it gets installed. Your kernel and core libraries update automatically alongside a trivial icon theme. One bad kernel update and your machine doesn't boot.

There is no safety net. One bad sync and you're in single-user mode at 2 AM.

nog exists to change that.

nog is a thin, readable Rust wrapper around pacman that adds a single idea: not all packages deserve equal urgency. Every package on your system belongs to one of three tiers, and each tier has its own update rules. The kernel, bootloader, and glibc sit behind a longer hold window. Your desktop environment gets a shorter one. Everything else flows through quickly.

We believe managing your system should be:

Safe — critical packages are never updated without a community-tested buffer
Transparent — nog is a pacman wrapper, not a replacement; no magic, no surprises
Familiar — if you know pacman, you know nog; same commands, same flags, same mental model
Readable — the whole source is a few hundred lines of Rust, deliberately simple

nog was born from a simple frustration: why does Arch give you everything except control over which updates reach you and when? It doesn't have to be that way.

Features

🎚 Three-tier package classification — every package is Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3
🕒 Date-based hold windows — 30 / 15 / 7 day holds let community testing surface regressions before updates land on your machine
🔒 Tier 1 protection — kernel, bootloader, glibc, systemd, mesa held for 30 days by default; expert mode swaps to manual-only promotion
📦 Status-grouped update output — every nog update groups pending upgrades into Ready / Held / Unknown with Catppuccin Mocha tier colors
🧩 AUR helper integration — auto-detects yay or paru; AUR pending upgrades are classified, date-evaluated (via the helper's cached metadata), and bucketed alongside official repo packages; transactions are handed off to the helper for combined -Syu
❓ Interactive Unknown handling — packages with no resolvable build date (locally-built, disabled-repo, or AUR query failure) are prompted case-by-case
🧑 No-sudo rule — run nog as your user; it escalates to root only via sudo pacman and sudo tee /etc/nog/tier-pins.toml. See Privilege model below.
⚡ Tier 3 fast track — everything else flows through pacman on a short hold
🎨 Color-coded search — every nog search result tagged with its tier
📌 Persistent tier pinning — nog pin <pkg> --tier=<N> writes to /etc/nog/tier-pins.toml
🔓 Promote escape hatch — nog unlock <pkg> --promote force-upgrades a held Tier 1 package now
🛡 Pacman-native — uses pacman --ignore for holds, no patching or shadowing
📖 Man page included — man nog for full reference

The Three-Tier System

Every package nog manages falls into one of three tiers. Tier assignments live in /etc/nog/tier-pins.toml and can be adjusted at any time with nog pin. Hold durations live in /etc/nog/nog.conf.

Tier 1 — 30-Day Hold (auto-release by default)

The most critical packages on your system. Updates are held for 30 days after upstream publish date — a full month of community testing before an update reaches your machine. Once the hold expires, the update flows through nog update like any other package.

Default Tier 1 packages: linux, linux-zen, linux-lts, linux-hardened, systemd, systemd-libs, glibc, grub, efibootmgr, mkinitcpio, pacman, mesa

Expert mode. Set manual_signoff = true under [tier1] in tier-pins.toml to switch Tier 1 off the auto-release and require explicit nog unlock <pkg> --promote for every kernel/glibc/systemd update. Recommended only if you want to personally eyeball every critical upgrade.

Tier 2 — 15-Day Hold

Key desktop applications and system services. Updates are held for 15 days — enough time for major regressions to surface, not so long that you fall behind.

Default Tier 2 packages: plasma-meta, plasma-desktop, sddm, pipewire, pipewire-pulse, wireplumber, networkmanager, firefox, dolphin, konsole, kate, grubforge, alacritty, fish, alacrittyforge

Tier 3 — 7-Day Hold

Everything else. Updates are held for 7 days — a short safety buffer without meaningful delay.

Requirements

Arch Linux (or Arch-based distribution)
pacman and pacman-contrib
yay or paru — optional; enables AUR support. nog functions without one; official repos only.
Rust toolchain (only for building from source)

Installation

AUR (recommended)

nog is available on the Arch User Repository: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/nog

yay -S nog

From source

git clone https://github.com/jetomev/nog.git
cd nog
cargo build --release
sudo install -Dm755 target/release/nog /usr/bin/nog
sudo install -Dm644 config/nog.conf /etc/nog/nog.conf
sudo install -Dm644 config/tier-pins.toml /etc/nog/tier-pins.toml
sudo install -Dm644 nog.1 /usr/share/man/man1/nog.1

System files installed

File	Location	Description
`nog` binary	`/usr/bin/nog`	The nog executable
`nog.conf`	`/etc/nog/nog.conf`	Main configuration file
`tier-pins.toml`	`/etc/nog/tier-pins.toml`	Tier 1/2/3 package assignments
`nog.1`	`/usr/share/man/man1/nog.1`	Man page

Usage

Run nog as your regular user. nog escalates via sudo only where genuinely required; you'll see the prompt at that moment. See Privilege model.

# Install a package (respects tier rules, routes to AUR helper if needed)
nog install <package>

# Update the system (tier holds applied; AUR included when a helper is configured)
nog update

# Search with tier annotations
nog search <query>

# Pin a package to a specific tier
nog pin <package> --tier=<1|2|3>

# Force-upgrade a held Tier 1 package
nog unlock <package> --promote

# Remove a package
nog remove <package>

# Version
nog --version

# Help
nog --help

How `nog update` works

When you run nog update, nog:

Calls checkupdates (pacman-contrib) to get the list of pending official repo upgrades — no sync-DB side effects
If an AUR helper is configured, calls <helper> -Qua to append pending AUR upgrades to the same list
Loads build dates: first from every enabled pacman sync DB, then (for AUR packages not found in any sync DB) from the helper's cached metadata via <helper> -Sai
Classifies each pending package and evaluates its hold window against the combined build-date map
Groups the result into three buckets:
- Ready to install — hold expired, safe to upgrade
- Held — either still inside the hold window, or Tier 1 under manual_signoff = true
- Unknown — no resolvable build date (locally-built, disabled-repo, or helper lookup failed)
For each Unknown package, prompts update anyway? [y/N]
Hands off the transaction:
- With helper: <helper> -Syu --ignore=<held + skipped-unknowns> — one combined upgrade for official + AUR. The helper runs as your user and sudo-s pacman internally for the pacman step.
- Without helper: sudo pacman -Syu --ignore=<...> — official repos only.
If everything is held, exits cleanly without invoking anything.

All classification happens before the transaction, so you always see the plan before anything is touched.

Example: `nog search`

extra/firefox 138.0-1 [Tier 2 — 15d hold]
    Fast, Private & Safe Web Browser
extra/linux-zen 6.19.10-1 [Tier 1 — 30d hold]
    The Linux ZEN kernel
extra/htop 3.4.1-1 [installed] [Tier 3 — 7d hold]
    Interactive process viewer

Example: `nog update`

nog: checking for pending updates...

Ready to install (2):
  libmpc          1.4.0-1  -> 1.4.1-1   [Tier 3 · 24 days past window]
  lib32-libngtcp2 1.22.0-1 -> 1.22.1-1  [Tier 3 · 14 days past window]

Held (3):
  linux             6.19.10-1 -> 6.19.11-1 [Tier 1 · 22 days remaining]
  firefox           138.0-1   -> 138.0.2-1 [Tier 2 · 11 days remaining]
  fresh-editor-bin  0.2.24-1  -> 0.2.25-1  [Tier 3 · 6 days remaining]

Unknown (1):
  my-local-pkg    0.9-1 -> 1.0-1 [Tier 3 · no build date in sync DB]

nog: 1 package(s) have no resolvable build date.
      This usually means a locally-built package or an AUR query failure.

  my-local-pkg (Tier 3 0.9-1 -> 1.0-1) — update anyway? [y/N] n

nog: handing off to yay...
:: Starting full system upgrade...

(Package names are tier-colored — Tier 1 red, Tier 2 yellow, Tier 3 green — using the Catppuccin Mocha palette.)

Configuration

nog reads two configuration files from /etc/nog/.

`nog.conf`

General nog settings — version, logging, paths, and the authoritative hold durations for each tier.

[general]
version = "1.0.2"
log_level = "info"

[paths]
tier_pins = "/etc/nog/tier-pins.toml"
pacman_conf = "/etc/pacman.conf"
log_file = "/var/log/nog.log"

[holds]
tier1_days = 30
tier2_days = 15
tier3_days = 7

[aur]
# AUR helper to use for AUR-only packages and AUR update detection.
#   "auto" — prefer yay, fall back to paru, skip AUR support if neither installed
#   "yay"  — require yay; error if not installed
#   "paru" — require paru; error if not installed
#   "none" — disable all AUR-aware paths (official repos only)
helper = "auto"

`tier-pins.toml`

The tier assignment file — who goes in Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3. Anything not listed here falls into Tier 3 by default. As of v0.8.0, the obsolete hold_days field has been removed — hold durations are owned by nog.conf's [holds] section (single source of truth).

[tier1]
# false (default): Tier 1 auto-updates after the 30-day hold window.
# true (expert):   Tier 1 stays wholesale held until `nog unlock <pkg> --promote`.
manual_signoff = false
packages = [
    "linux",
    "linux-zen",
    "systemd",
    "glibc",
    "grub",
    "mesa",
    # ...
]

[tier2]
manual_signoff = false
packages = [
    "plasma-desktop",
    "firefox",
    # ...
]

[tier3]
manual_signoff = false
# everything not listed above falls here automatically

The manual_signoff field is only meaningful on [tier1]. Tier 2 and Tier 3 do not consult it.

Project Structure

nog/
|-- Cargo.toml                 # Package manifest — dependencies, metadata
|-- src/
|   |-- main.rs                # Entry point, CLI definition via clap
|   |-- commands/
|   |   |-- mod.rs             # All subcommand implementations
|   |-- tiers.rs               # Tier classification engine
|   |-- pacman.rs              # pacman subprocess wrapper (invokes sudo pacman)
|   |-- aur.rs                 # AUR helper detection (yay / paru) + delegation
|   |-- sync_db.rs             # pacman sync-DB reader (build-date lookup)
|   |-- holds.rs               # Hold-status evaluator (pure function)
|   |-- config.rs              # Config loader
|-- config/
|   |-- nog.conf               # Default nog configuration
|   |-- tier-pins.toml         # Default tier assignments
|-- nog.1                      # Man page
|-- PKGBUILD                   # AUR package build file
|-- LICENSE                    # GPL v3

Safety Philosophy

nog is built around one principle: never surprise the user with a kernel update.

Every system action goes through three layers of protection:

Classification — every package is assigned a tier before any operation
Transparency — holds, their remaining duration, and their reason are always reported before a change is made
Pacman-native enforcement — holds use pacman's own --ignore mechanism, so there is no way for nog to silently bypass them

Explicit commands (install, remove, pin) execute the user's intent without gating — tier protection lives in the passive path (update). Installing linux-lts is always allowed; what's governed is when the next kernel update lands on your machine.

nog does not replace pacman. It does not patch pacman. It does not shadow pacman commands. It is a small, readable wrapper — you can read the entire source in an afternoon.

Privilege model — what nog touches and when

nog is designed so that you never need to invoke it with sudo. It runs as your regular user and only escalates to root at the specific moments where root is genuinely required. Every elevation is visible — you will see the sudo password prompt when it happens.

The rule

Run nog as your user. Never sudo nog.

If you forget and prefix sudo while an AUR helper is configured, nog detects it (via $SUDO_USER/$SUDO_UID) and exits with a clear error. This is a hard stop because yay and paru both refuse to run as root. Without a helper configured, sudo nog still works — sudo-as-root is a no-op passthrough — but it isn't necessary.

When nog escalates

nog invokes sudo in exactly two places. Both are transparent to the user (you see the prompt directly):

Operation	Command invoked	When
Package transactions	`sudo pacman -S \| -R \| -Syu ...`	`install`, `remove`, `update`, `unlock --promote` — only when no AUR helper is configured. When a helper is configured, nog calls the helper (as your user) and the helper runs its own `sudo pacman` internally.
Tier-pin writes	`sudo tee /etc/nog/tier-pins.toml`	Only during `nog pin`. The new file contents are rebuilt in memory and piped through `sudo tee`. nog itself never runs as root; only `tee` does.

That is the complete list. nog never invokes sudo anywhere else.

Files nog reads (no elevation)

All of these are world-readable on a standard Arch install, so nog reads them as your user:

/etc/nog/nog.conf — nog main configuration
/etc/nog/tier-pins.toml — tier assignments
/etc/pacman.conf — for repo enablement and priority ordering
/var/lib/pacman/sync/*.db — sync DBs, for package build-date lookup

Files nog writes (elevated)

Exactly one file is ever written by nog itself:

/etc/nog/tier-pins.toml — written via sudo tee during nog pin. No other persistent file is created or modified by nog.

What nog does NOT touch

The entire rest of your system is out of scope:

/etc/pacman.conf — never modified
/etc/pacman.d/** (mirrorlists, etc.) — never modified
/var/lib/pacman/local/** — pacman's own installed-package state; nog never touches it
/var/lib/pacman/sync/** — read-only access for date lookups
/var/cache/pacman/** — never touched
Pacman's GPG keyring and signature verification — unmodified; every transaction runs through pacman's own checks
/etc/sudoers, PAM configuration, any other auth state — never touched
/usr/bin, /usr/lib, or any other system binary location — never touched directly; pacman and the helper own these paths

nog does not shadow, patch, or replace pacman. It is purely a wrapper that calls pacman (or an AUR helper) as a subprocess. Every install, remove, and upgrade goes through pacman's signature verification and conflict resolution — nog cannot bypass them.

AUR helper integration

When [aur] helper in nog.conf resolves to yay or paru:

nog calls <helper> -Qua (as your user) to list AUR pending upgrades
nog calls <helper> -S ... (as your user) for installs, or <helper> -Syu --ignore=... for the combined upgrade
The helper fetches PKGBUILDs and runs makepkg as your user
The helper runs sudo pacman internally when it reaches its pacman steps — that sudo prompt comes from the helper, not from nog

nog never invokes sudo yay or sudo paru. That is a deliberate refusal — both helpers refuse to run as root precisely because makepkg needs to run as a non-root user.

In one paragraph

nog runs as your user. It escalates exactly twice: sudo pacman for package transactions, and sudo tee /etc/nog/tier-pins.toml for the one file it ever writes. It never modifies any other file on your system, never bypasses pacman's signature verification, and never runs as root itself. If a helper is configured, transactions are handed off to yay or paru as your user, and those helpers escalate themselves.

Roadmap

v1.0.0 — Released

v1.0 — All phases shipped

~~Phase 1 — sync DB reader with gzip + zstd support~~ ✅
~~Phase 2 — hold evaluation logic~~ ✅
~~Phase 3 — wire into nog update~~ ✅
~~Phase 4 — AUR helper detection~~ ✅
~~Phase 5a — AUR build-date resolution~~ ✅
~~Phase 5b — documentation polish (man + help)~~ ✅

v1.0 release kit — ✅ Shipped

PKGBUILD in tree at repo root, kept in lockstep with the latest tag
AUR submission — ssh://aur@aur.archlinux.org/nog.git tracks releases; maintained via ~/Programs/aur-nog-remote/
Dogfood — full TEST-MATRIX.md run captured in TEST-REPORT-v1.0.md; the dogfood surfaced the v1.0.1 zstd fix and the v1.0.2 polish batch, both validated on the AUR-delivered binary
Release discipline — every release now runs through local makepkg -si test → AUR push → uninstall + fresh AUR install verification

Future

First-run wizard — on first nog update, ask the user whether Tier 1 should auto-update after 30 days (default, novice-friendly) or require manual unlock --promote per kernel/glibc/systemd upgrade (expert mode). Writes the chosen value to tier-pins.toml [tier1] manual_signoff.
Chaotic-AUR binary package (submit once v1.0 is stable)
nog history — log of all tier changes and package actions
nog status — dashboard showing what's held, what's ready, what's overdue
nog rollback — revert a recent update using pacman cache
Hook support for notifying a GUI companion like nogforge

Changelog

v1.0.2 — April 19, 2026

Dogfood-surfaced polish batch

Five small fixes and two matrix refinements, all caught during the end-to-end dogfood of the AUR-installed v1.0.1 binary. See TEST-REPORT-v1.0.md for the full run — every finding is documented there with observed behavior, severity, and fix rationale.

Fixes:

🛑 F5 — graceful exit on missing tier-pins. load_tiers() no longer panics with a Rust-native backtrace hint when /etc/nog/tier-pins.toml is unreadable. Clean eprintln! + std::process::exit(1) with the attempted path in the error message for diagnostic clarity.
🗂 F4 — single-warning config load. NogConfig::load_default() now cached via OnceLock — no more duplicate "no nog.conf found" warnings on misconfigured systems, and repeat callers read from the cache instead of re-hitting the filesystem.
🔒 F2 — release binaries no longer embed the maintainer's build path. The CARGO_MANIFEST_DIR dev-fallback branch is gated behind #[cfg(debug_assertions)]. Release binaries pass strings checks cleanly; dev clones still work as before via cargo run. Resolves the makepkg $srcdir warning.
🎨 F1 — nog search tier annotations are now config-aware and consistent. Tier 1 shows 30d hold by default (was the misleading manual sign-off), flipping to manual sign-off only when tier1 manual_signoff = true. Tier 3 shows 7d hold (was fast-track). All day counts read from nog.conf's [holds] section.
📝 F3 — error messages no longer duplicate "exit status". Every eprintln!("... exited with status {}", status) now uses status.code().unwrap_or(-1) so output reads exited with status 1 instead of exited with status exit status: 1.

Matrix refinements:

📋 M1 — TEST-MATRIX.md check 15.3 updated: .pacsave/.pacnew siblings are expected after any uninstall/reinstall cycle (the PKGBUILD's backup= directive intentionally preserves user-modified configs)
📋 M2 — TEST-MATRIX.md check 3.5 no longer keys the pass criterion on a specific exit code for nonexistent packages — helpers have inconsistent behavior here (yay returns 0 with "nothing to do"; paru may return non-zero)

No behavior changes beyond the error-path polish and the search label text. 6/6 hold tests still green. Same zstd-via-pkg-config dynamic-linking contract as v1.0.1.

v1.0.1 — April 19, 2026

Hotfix — AUR build failure on fresh environments

🔨 Cargo.toml: switch zstd = "0.13" to zstd = { version = "0.13", features = ["pkg-config"] }. The previous config relied on zstd-sys's bundled static build, which failed to link under Arch's makepkg environment (LLD + -Wl,--as-needed + -nodefaultlibs) because zstd-sys didn't emit the static-library link directive in that toolchain config
📚 Now uses system libzstd via dynamic linking — zero extra runtime dep (pacman already depends on libzstd, so it's always present on Arch)
📄 Man page header + README badge + Cargo.toml + nog.conf all bumped to 1.0.1
ℹ No behavior changes; 6/6 hold tests still green. Caught by the v1.0 dogfood pass — exactly what a dogfood is for.

v1.0.0 — April 19, 2026

Initial stable release.

nog is now a complete tier-aware wrapper for pacman and the common AUR helpers, built and polished across six deliberate phases documented in the entries below. This release declares the core contract stable:

What nog does

Classifies every package into Tier 1 (kernel / bootloader / glibc / systemd / mesa — 30-day hold), Tier 2 (DE and key applications — 15-day hold), or Tier 3 (everything else — 7-day hold)
Computes a full tier-aware upgrade plan before any transaction runs, grouping pending updates into Ready, Held, and Unknown buckets with Catppuccin Mocha tier colors
Resolves build dates from every enabled pacman sync database (gzip + zstd), then falls back to the configured AUR helper's cached metadata (<helper> -Sai) for AUR-only packages — so AUR upgrades get real hold evaluation, not always-Unknown
Hands off the final transaction to pacman or the helper with --ignore=<held + skipped> — pacman-native enforcement, no shadowing
Escalates to root only via sudo pacman for transactions and sudo tee for writing /etc/nog/tier-pins.toml. Run nog as your user — never with sudo. The one-rule privilege model is documented exhaustively in the Privilege model section.

What nog doesn't do

Does not shadow, patch, or replace pacman — every transaction goes through pacman's signature verification
Does not modify any system file outside /etc/nog/tier-pins.toml
Does not make direct network calls — the helper owns all AUR network I/O
Does not install, upgrade, or remove anything without pacman's own confirmation prompts
Does not gate explicit user commands — nog install linux-lts always proceeds; tier protection lives in the passive update path

Ecosystem nog is the native package manager for KognogOS, with a TUI companion (nogforge) and bootloader/terminal utilities (grubforge, alacrittyforge).

Known limitations carried into v1.0

AUR build-date resolution depends on the helper's cached metadata being fresh. If the cache is stale, hold windows are evaluated against the cached date rather than live upstream data. Running <helper> -Sy (or yay -Syy) refreshes it.
Tier pinning of AUR packages works, but AUR packages without a Last Modified field still fall into the Unknown bucket and trigger the y/N prompt.

Thanks Development happened in deliberate phases (see below). Every phase closed with a tagged pre-release and a working dev build; the v1.0.0 tag is the moment the release kit (AUR submission + dogfood) begins.

v0.12.0 — April 18, 2026

Phase 5b (docs) — man page and help-text accuracy pass

📜 Full man page rewrite: DESCRIPTION updated (30/15/7 day windows, AUR helper mention, expert-mode pointer); COMMANDS updated for every subcommand's real v0.12.0 behavior (no more stale "Tier 1 blocked" on install, accurate nog update bucketing description, nog unlock new semantics); TIER SYSTEM rewritten with auto-release default + expert mode; FILES now lists sync DBs and pacman.conf as read paths and notes sudo tee for tier-pins writes
🏷 man nog header bumped to v0.12.0
💬 Clap help text refresh — top-level long_about now summarizes the tier system and no-sudo rule in a few sentences; every subcommand (install, remove, update, search, pin, unlock) has a short description for the command list plus a longer one shown in <cmd> --help
🗂 Roadmap split Phase 5's polish work: screenshots + v1.0.0 CHANGELOG consolidation moved into the v1.0 dogfood + release kit step (more honest framing — they belong at release time, not pre-release)
ℹ No behavior changes; no test regressions (6/6 still green); warnings unchanged at 7

v0.11.0 — April 18, 2026

Phase 5a — AUR build-date resolution (the last Unknown falls)

📅 AUR pending upgrades now get real Unix-timestamp build dates by parsing the Last Modified field from the helper's cached metadata (<helper> -Sai) — no direct AUR RPC calls from nog
🧮 The hold evaluator sees a unified build-date map (sync-DB ∪ AUR) and buckets AUR packages as Ready or Held based on their actual dates, with countdown/past-window reasons identical to official repo packages
🧩 New aur::build_dates_for(helper, packages) — batched -Sai subprocess call, robust colon-split parser that tolerates variable column widths across yay/paru, Unix-timestamp conversion via date -d
🛟 Soft-fail discipline preserved — if the helper is unreachable, the Last Modified line is missing, or date can't parse the string, those packages fall back to the Unknown bucket and hit the existing y/N prompt. No hard errors, no crashes, no change to current user-facing error paths
🔒 Zero new dependencies, zero new network surface from nog itself — threat model identical to v0.10.0: nog spawns subprocesses, the helper owns all AUR network I/O
🗣 Unknown-bucket message updated — "no resolvable build date" is more accurate than "no build date in any sync DB" now that lookup has multiple paths
⚠ Only truly orphan packages (locally-built, disabled-repo, AUR query failure) reach the prompt now — most previous "Unknown" cases resolve automatically

v0.10.0 — April 18, 2026

Phase 4 — AUR helper integration + unified no-sudo privilege model

🧩 New aur module — helper detection (yay → paru → none) driven by [aur] helper in nog.conf. Supports "auto", "yay", "paru", "none"; hard-errors if the user requests a specific helper that isn't installed
📦 nog update folds AUR pending upgrades (<helper> -Qua) into the existing status-grouped output alongside official repo packages from checkupdates. AUR packages bucket as Unknown for now (no sync-DB build date); the y/N prompt already handles them correctly
🔄 nog update transaction handoff routes through the helper when configured (<helper> -Syu --ignore=...) for a single combined official+AUR upgrade. Without a helper, pacman handoff is unchanged
📥 nog install <pkg> routes through the helper when configured, so AUR-only packages "just work" without a pre-check. The helper resolves sync repos before AUR automatically
🔓 nog unlock --promote similarly routes through the helper when configured
🧑 No-sudo rule — single consistent UX: run nog as your user. pacman.rs now invokes sudo pacman internally; tiers::pin_package writes /etc/nog/tier-pins.toml via sudo tee. nog pin no longer needs shell-level sudo. Fully backwards-compatible: sudo nog <cmd> still works for non-helper paths (sudo-as-root passes through)
🛑 Root-guard — if nog is invoked via sudo (detected via $SUDO_USER/$SUDO_UID) and a helper is configured, it exits with a clear message pointing the user to drop the sudo. Necessary because yay/paru refuse to run as root
📖 New "Privilege model" section in README — documents exactly where nog escalates (sudo pacman, sudo tee /etc/nog/tier-pins.toml), which files it reads without elevation, the single file it ever writes, and the comprehensive list of system files it never touches (pacman.conf, pacman.d, /var/lib/pacman/local, keyring, sudoers, etc.)
📜 Man page gains a targeted PRIVILEGES AND SUDO section mirroring the README content; version header bumped to 0.10.0; EXAMPLES dropped their sudo prefixes. Full man page rewrite (command descriptions, tier metadata) deferred to Phase 5 polish
ℹ No regressions in existing behavior: 6/6 hold tests still green, 7 warnings (unchanged since Phase 3)

v0.9.0 — April 18, 2026

Phase 3 — wired into nog update (the tier system goes live)

🔌 nog update now calls checkupdates (pacman-contrib) to list pending upgrades without the -Sy side effect, then classifies every pending package against its tier's hold window
📊 Status-grouped output: three labelled buckets — Ready to install, Held, Unknown — each showing package name, version bump, tier, and either "N days past window", "N days remaining", or "no build date in sync DB"
🎨 Tier-colored output using the Catppuccin Mocha palette (Tier 1 red #F38BA8, Tier 2 yellow #F9E2AF, Tier 3 green #A6E3A1) — muted subtext color #A6ADC8 for version/metadata
❓ Interactive [y/N] prompt per Unknown package (AUR-only, locally-built, or disabled-repo); EOF / non-TTY stdin auto-skips remaining Unknowns with a warning instead of hanging
🎚 Tier 1 policy change, novice-friendly default: manual_signoff now defaults to false — Tier 1 auto-updates once the 30-day hold expires. Expert users can set manual_signoff = true to restore always-held-until-promoted behavior
🔓 nog unlock <pkg> --promote kept as the expert-mode escape hatch: force-upgrade a held Tier 1 package right now, bypassing the hold and manual_signoff
🗑 Tier 1 install block removed — nog install linux-lts now proceeds normally; tier classification is shown as informational output only. Explicit user commands execute user intent; tier protection lives in the passive update path
🧹 nog unlock without --promote now honestly reports it has no session state to toggle, and points the user at --promote for the real action
⚠ Warnings reduced to 7 — previously-unused is_manual_signoff method is now live; the orphaned tier1_packages() helper was removed

v0.8.0 — April 18, 2026

Phase 2 — Hold evaluation logic (the date-math engine)

🧮 New holds module with a pure evaluate() function — given a package, tier, build-date map, and hold config, returns one of Expired { days_past_window }, Holding { days_remaining }, or Unknown
✅ 6 unit tests covering all three states, the exact-window boundary, partial-day rounding (ceiling per spec), and future-dated-package edge cases
🔒 All inputs explicit including now: SystemTime — tests run deterministically, no hidden clock dependency
🗓 New hold spec live in nog.conf: Tier 1 = 30 days, Tier 2 = 15 days, Tier 3 = 7 days
🧹 Removed obsolete hold_days field from tier-pins.toml — hold durations now owned exclusively by nog.conf [holds] (single source of truth)
🔧 tiers.rs cleanup: dropped hold_days field and method, simplified Display for Tier enum, removed unused std::path::Path import
🧪 Hidden _debug-hold <package> subcommand added for internal verification — classifies, looks up build date, evaluates hold, prints result
⚠ Warnings reduced from 11 to 9 — previously-unused HoldsConfig fields are now active
ℹ This phase adds no user-visible commands. The _debug-hold tool is hidden from --help. Phase 3 will wire this evaluator into nog update.

v0.7.0 — April 18, 2026

Phase 1 — Sync DB reader (foundation for date-based holds)

🧱 New sync_db module reads every enabled pacman sync database and builds a map of package → build-date Unix timestamp
🗜 Auto-detects gzip (core, extra, multilib) and zstd (Chaotic-AUR and similar) compression via magic-byte sniffing
📋 Respects pacman.conf repo priority — first repo wins on name collisions, matching pacman's own resolution
🛡 Graceful fallback when pacman.conf is unreadable — scans the sync directory directly
📦 Indexes 18,000+ packages across all enabled repos on a standard Arch install
🧪 Verified against pacman -Si output for official and Chaotic-AUR packages — exact timestamp match
➕ Dependencies added: flate2, tar, zstd
🔢 Version bumped to 0.7.0 to mark v1.0 development in progress
ℹ This phase adds no user-visible commands. It is infrastructure for Phase 2 and onward.

v0.6.0 — April 7, 2026

AUR package + man page

📦 nog available on the AUR — install with yay -S nog
📖 Man page added — nog.1 installed to /usr/share/man/man1/
🔢 Version now reads from CARGO_PKG_VERSION — no hardcoded strings
📋 PKGBUILD installs binary, config files, license, and man page

v0.5.0 — April 5, 2026

nog pin — persistent tier changes

📌 nog pin <package> --tier=<1|2|3> writes changes to /etc/nog/tier-pins.toml
➕ Pinning to Tier 1 or 2 adds the package to the correct section
➖ Pinning to Tier 3 removes it from Tier 1/2 — Tier 3 is the default, no entry needed
♻ Changes survive reboots and are immediately reflected in nog search annotations

v0.4.0 — April 5, 2026

nog update — Tier 1 properly excluded

🛡 nog update passes Tier 1 packages to pacman via --ignore flags
🔒 Tier 1 packages are genuinely untouchable during a system upgrade
✅ Confirmed: system upgraded 14 packages, zero Tier 1 packages touched

v0.3.0 — April 4, 2026

nog search + system install

🎨 nog search shows color-coded tier annotations for every result
📂 Installed system-wide with config files at /etc/nog/
🚀 nog callable from anywhere on the system without a path

v0.2.0 — March 25, 2026

Tier system + real pacman calls

🎚 Three-tier classification engine fully implemented in tiers.rs
📋 tier-pins.toml defines all Tier 1/2/3 package assignments
🔌 pacman.rs wires real subprocess calls — nog installs, removes, and updates for real
⛔ nog install blocks Tier 1 packages with a clear error message
🔓 nog unlock --promote allows manual Tier 1 upgrades
⚙ config.rs reads /etc/nog/nog.conf with graceful fallback

v0.1.0 — March 25, 2026

Initial release — nog CLI skeleton

🦀 Rust CLI using clap with derive macros
📝 All subcommands defined: install, remove, update, search, pin, unlock
🏗 Three-tier architecture designed and stubbed

Related Projects

KognogOS

The parent distribution where nog is the native package manager. Arch-based, KDE Plasma on Wayland, Zen kernel, Catppuccin Mocha. https://github.com/jetomev/KognogOS

nogforge

A TUI for managing nog, plus unified interface for AUR helpers, Flatpak, and Snap. Built on top of nog to extend it into a full graphical package management experience. https://github.com/jetomev/nogforge

GrubForge

A TUI for managing the GRUB bootloader. Ships with KognogOS, pinned to Tier 2. https://github.com/jetomev/grubforge

AlacrittyForge

A TUI for managing and customizing the Alacritty terminal emulator. Ships with KognogOS, pinned to Tier 2. https://github.com/jetomev/alacrittyforge

Authors

jetomev — idea, vision, direction, testing

Claude (Anthropic) — co-developer, architecture, implementation

This project is a collaboration between a human with a clear vision for what Linux package management should feel like, and an AI that helped design and build the tools to make it real — one command at a time.

License

nog is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License v3.0 as published by the Free Software Foundation.

See LICENSE for the full license text.

Contributing

nog is in early alpha. Ideas, feedback, and contributions are welcome — open an issue or pull request on GitHub.

If this project resonates with you, consider starring the repository. It helps others find it and motivates continued development.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 26 Commits
config		config
src		src
.gitignore		.gitignore
Cargo.lock		Cargo.lock
Cargo.toml		Cargo.toml
LICENSE		LICENSE
PKGBUILD		PKGBUILD
README.md		README.md
TEST-MATRIX.md		TEST-MATRIX.md
TEST-REPORT-v1.0.md		TEST-REPORT-v1.0.md
nog.1		nog.1

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📦 nog

Why nog?

Features

The Three-Tier System

Tier 1 — 30-Day Hold (auto-release by default)

Tier 2 — 15-Day Hold

Tier 3 — 7-Day Hold

Requirements

Installation

AUR (recommended)

From source

System files installed

Usage

How nog update works

Example: nog search

Example: nog update

Configuration

nog.conf

tier-pins.toml

Project Structure

Safety Philosophy

Privilege model — what nog touches and when

The rule

When nog escalates

Files nog reads (no elevation)

Files nog writes (elevated)

What nog does NOT touch

AUR helper integration

In one paragraph

Roadmap

v1.0.0 — Released

v1.0 — All phases shipped

v1.0 release kit — ✅ Shipped

Future

Changelog

v1.0.2 — April 19, 2026

v1.0.1 — April 19, 2026

v1.0.0 — April 19, 2026

v0.12.0 — April 18, 2026

v0.11.0 — April 18, 2026

v0.10.0 — April 18, 2026

v0.9.0 — April 18, 2026

v0.8.0 — April 18, 2026

v0.7.0 — April 18, 2026

v0.6.0 — April 7, 2026

v0.5.0 — April 5, 2026

v0.4.0 — April 5, 2026

v0.3.0 — April 4, 2026

v0.2.0 — March 25, 2026

v0.1.0 — March 25, 2026

Related Projects

KognogOS

nogforge

GrubForge

AlacrittyForge

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How `nog update` works

Example: `nog search`

Example: `nog update`

`nog.conf`

`tier-pins.toml`

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