The Arch Build System, or ABS, is a series of tools used to obtain the PKGBUILD
scripts that make the packages in Arch Linux's official repositories and work
with them.

Included with ABS is a collection of prototype PKGBUILD files, installed to
/usr/share/pacman, for building RCS-style packages (such as CVS or SVN). These
are installed alongside the stock PKGBUILD and .install file prototypes 
provided by pacman.