patfish

A small Fish-shell wrapper around Debian and Ubuntu package tools. Originally a port of rummik/patpat, now maintained at codefriendly/patfish.

Modern apt already handles most package-management tasks. patfish adds short commands, automatic privilege elevation, and one interface for apt, apt-file, repository management, and package reconfiguration. It is a convenience layer, not a new package manager. It is not intended for Arch Linux or Omarchy.

Requirements

• Fish 3.6 or newer.
• Debian or Ubuntu with apt and dpkg.
• sudo when running privileged commands as a non-root user.
• apt-file for update, up, find, and file.
• software-properties-common for repository/PPA commands.
• aptitude only for pat ui.

Install the extra tools you need, for example:

sudo apt install fish apt-file software-properties-common aptitude

PPAs are an Ubuntu feature; do not assume an Ubuntu PPA is compatible with Debian.

Installation

Clone the repository, then run these commands in Fish:

git clone https://github.com/codefriendly/patfish.git
mkdir -p ~/.config/fish/functions
cp patfish/pat.fish ~/.config/fish/functions/pat.fish

Fish will load pat automatically on first use. If you customize XDG_CONFIG_HOME, use $__fish_config_dir/functions instead of ~/.config/fish/functions. To try it without installing, run source patfish/pat.fish in your current Fish session. To update an installed copy, pull the repository and copy the file again.

Commands

Command	What it runs
pat, pat help	Show help (-h and --help also work)
pat update / pat u	sudo apt update, then sudo apt-file update
pat upgrade	sudo apt upgrade
pat up	Update both indexes, then sudo apt upgrade
pat install curl / pat i curl	sudo apt install curl
pat install ./app.deb	sudo apt install ./app.deb (including dependencies)
pat search curl	apt search curl
pat show curl	apt show curl
pat find bin/curl	apt-file search bin/curl
pat file list curl	sudo apt-file list curl
pat ui	sudo aptitude
pat ppa owner/name	sudo add-apt-repository ppa:owner/name, then update both indexes
pat add-repository <repository> / pat add <repository>	sudo add-apt-repository <repository>, then update both indexes
pat reconfigure tzdata	sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata
pat autoremove	sudo apt autoremove
pat remove curl	Other commands pass through to sudo apt

sudo is omitted when already running as root. Read-only search, show, and find commands do not request elevated privileges.

Arguments are passed through without eval, preserving spaces and shell metacharacters. Quote patterns as you normally would in Fish:

pat search 'terminal music player'
pat install './package with spaces.deb'
pat install curl wget ./local-package.deb
pat upgrade -y

Local package paths must start with ./, ../, or /, as required by apt. pat up accepts no arguments: run pat update and pat upgrade -y separately if you need upgrade options. pat update passes its arguments only to apt update, not to apt-file update.

Failures are returned to the caller. An index-update failure stops pat up before upgrading, and a failed repository addition stops before updating. Commands retain the underlying tools' confirmation prompts; patfish does not supply -y automatically. Index updates refresh system state; they are not transactions and cannot undo an earlier successful step if a later step fails.

Changes from the original version

• Everyday commands and unknown-command passthrough use apt, not aptitude. These tools can make different dependency-resolution decisions; use aptitude directly if you need its behavior. Its interactive UI remains available through pat ui.
• Local .deb installation uses apt to resolve dependencies in one operation, replacing the broken file check and the old dpkg / apt-get -f sequence.
• Dispatch no longer uses eval.
• Update and repository failures stop subsequent steps.
• Missing required arguments return status 2 with a diagnostic.

Development

From the repository root:

fish --no-config --no-execute pat.fish
fish --no-config tests/pat.fish
fish_indent --check pat.fish tests/pat.fish tests/debian.fish

tests/pat.fish mocks privilege elevation and package-management commands. It does not install packages, modify repositories, or require Debian/Ubuntu.

CI also runs a separate job in a Debian 13 (debian:trixie-slim) container on an Ubuntu host. It runs the mocked tests and tests/debian.fish, which exercises real apt and apt-file index updates, searches, package information, local .deb installation with dependencies, and package installation/removal through sudo as a non-root user. Upgrade and autoremove use simulation mode. PPA commands and the interactive Aptitude UI are not integration-tested.

The integration script changes system packages and creates a test user with passwordless permission to run apt. Run it only in a disposable container, never on a persistent machine. It refuses to run outside a recognized Docker or Podman container. The container is removed after the following local test, and the repository is mounted read-only:

docker run --rm \
  --mount "type=bind,source=$PWD,target=/work,readonly" \
  --workdir /work --env DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
  debian:trixie-slim sh -ec '
    apt-get update
    apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends ca-certificates git fish sudo apt-file
    fish --no-config tests/pat.fish
    fish --no-config tests/debian.fish
  '

The real package tests require network access to Debian mirrors. apt prints a warning about its unstable CLI when used noninteractively; this is expected. The smoke tests check a few package-output markers and installed package state, not the complete human-readable output.

License

MIT.