Aur Search Bot: Search the AUR

You are in a Linux chat and someone asks whether a program exists in the AUR. Open the browser, search, copy the name, go back to the conversation. Aur Search Bot cuts that down to a single typed query. 🐧

It searches the Arch User Repository, the community-run package collection for Arch Linux, and works in inline mode.

Search without leaving the conversation

Inline mode is a built-in Telegram feature. In any chat you type the bot's name followed by a search word, and a list of matching results pops up right above the keyboard.

Tap the package you want and it lands in the conversation. The other person does not have to look anything up.

1. Open any chat, private or group.
2. Start a message with the bot's name.
3. Add the package name or part of it.
4. Pick a result from the list.

The bot has no separate commands. Everything revolves around the search query.

What the AUR is and why people use it

The official Arch repositories do not hold everything. The rest is built and maintained by the community: drivers, rare utilities, fresh builds of popular programs, proprietary apps. Those packages sit in the AUR as build recipes that you run on your own machine. 📦

Finding the right name can be tricky. There are thousands of packages, and similar programs often have similar names.

How the search works behind the scenes

The bot talks to the AUR's own interface, which returns package data. The source code is open and was written by an independent developer in the Rust language. You can run your own copy with a bot token and a build from source. 🛠️

This is a small hobby project, not a commercial service. Do not expect extras such as update notifications.

Check this before installing anything from the AUR

Finding a package is only step one. The AUR hosts builds that nobody officially reviews, so the responsibility is yours.

• The build script. Read the instructions file before running it. It should be clear where the sources come from.
• Votes and freshness. User votes and the last update date tell you if the package is alive.
• Comments. Under a package you often find build problems and fixes.
• The maintainer. Abandoned packages may fail to build on a current system.

Who benefits

Arch Linux users and users of related distributions who talk about software in chats. People who run a Linux channel and share finds. Maintainers who need to show a colleague a package quickly. 💬

If you do not use Arch, you have no reason to add it: the AUR serves only that family of systems.

Worth knowing

The project is small, and how reliably it runs depends on its author and hosting. If the bot stays silent, look the package up on the repository's own web page. Results appear on request, and the decision to install is always yours.