Package contents

During the build process, the hab-plan-build script creates several files that specify dependency, build, and configuration information. When packages are unpacked (extracted) and installed during the initialization phase of a Chef Habitat service, these files define what packages need to run.

Packages are installed in the /hab/pkgs/ directory, and then further organized in subdirectories corresponding to fully-qualified package identifiers: origin/name/version/release. For more information on package identifiers, see Packages.

Contents of a Chef Habitat package

BUILD_DEPS: Fully-qualified package identifiers of any build dependencies your package depends on. These are listed in the root plan.sh file of your plan directory.
BUILD_TDEPS: Fully-qualified package identifiers of any runtime dependencies that your project’s build dependencies depend on. This is essentially a flattened dependency tree up to the root dependency (linux-headers in most cases).
BUILDTIME_ENVIRONMENT: A file that contains information similar to the RUNTIME_ENVIRONMENT file, but is constructed from a package’s build-time dependencies instead of its runtime dependencies. This file isn’t currently consumed by other software in the Chef Habitat ecosystem, but it can be useful for troubleshooting and information.
BUILDTIME_ENVIRONMENT_PROVENANCE: A file that provides information about which specific dependencies influenced the final value of a given variable in the BUILDTIME_ENVIRONMENT file. This file isn’t currently consumed by other software in the Chef Habitat ecosystem, but it can be useful for troubleshooting and information.
CFLAGS: Additional switches to be passed to the compiler when this package is used as a build dependency.
DEPS: Runtime dependencies for your package. These dependencies are processed by Chef Habitat and their corresponding environment variables (such as PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH) are added to the current environment.
FILES: List of all files in this package along with their blake2b checksums. The FILES file itself is signed using hab pkg sign to provide an assurance that its contents haven’t been tampered with.
IDENT: The fully-qualified identifier for the package. The format is origin/name/version/release.
INTERPRETERS: If pkg_interpreters is specified in your plan.sh, this file is generated and contains a list of absolute paths to any interpreters a package can provide. Code in a plan.sh can use the fix_interpreter function to replace hard-coded interpreter paths, such as /bin/env. Interpreter paths in Chef Habitat are nested under /hab/pkgs/. For more information on interpreters, see the fix_interpreter description in Plan helper functions.
LDFLAGS: Additional switches to be passed to the compiler when this package is used as a build dependency.
LD_RUN_PATH: Additional switches to be passed to the compiler when this package is used as a build dependency.
MANIFEST: A file containing package information, such as checksum, maintainer, build variables, and other metadata specified in plan.sh, as well as the contents of plan.sh itself.
PATH: A file that contains all directories in the package which contain program binaries. The directories are separated with the target platform’s path separator character (either : or ;).
RUNTIME_ENVIRONMENT: A file containing the result of layering the current package’s runtime environment variables on top of those of its dependencies. The build process consults this file when processing dependencies, and the Supervisor consults it together with RUNTIME_PATH when generating the full set of environment variables that should be added before running a supervised process.
RUNTIME_ENVIRONMENT_PROVENANCE: A file that provides information about which specific dependencies influenced the final value of a given variable in the RUNTIME_ENVIRONMENT file. This file isn’t currently consumed by other software in the Chef Habitat ecosystem, but it can be useful for troubleshooting and information.
RUNTIME_PATH: A file that contains all directories that need to be prepended to an environment’s $PATH before a program in this package can be expected to run correctly. The order of the elements is precise and meaningful, so it shouldn’t be altered. This file is used with RUNTIME_ENVIRONMENT to compute the full set of environment variables that should be added before running a program in this package.
TARGET: The CPU architecture and platform for the package. The format is architecture-platform. For example, x86_64-linux.
TDEPS: Fully-qualified package identifiers of any runtime dependencies that your project’s runtime dependencies depend on. This is essentially a flattened dependency tree up to the root dependency (linux-headers in most cases).
SVC_GROUP: The value of pkg_svc_group from a plan. The Chef Habitat Supervisor will try to start a service with this group if it exists.
SVC_USER: The value of pkg_svc_user from a plan. The Chef Habitat Supervisor will try to start a service with this user if it exists.
default.toml: If you have defined a default.toml file in the root of your plan, it’s included in the same relative location within the installed package directory. For more information on configuration and the default.toml file, see Configuration updates.
config directory`: If you have defined a config subdirectory with a templated configuration file in your plan, it’s included in the same relative location within the installed package directory. For more information on templated configuration files, see Add configuration to plans.
config_install directory: If you have defined a config_install subdirectory with a templated configuration file in your plan, it’s included in the same relative location within the installed package directory. For more information on templated configuration files, see Add configuration to plans.
hooks directory: If you have defined a hooks subdirectory with hook scripts in your plan, those scripts are included in the same relative location within the installed package directory. Read more about Application lifecycle hooks.