Alpine packages

Use Depot to serve Alpine packages to apk. The built-in alpine cache mirrors Alpine's upstream; Private repositories store your team's .apk packages.

Install packages

You need organization membership, root access to an Alpine system, and a Depot token. Obtain your personal credential with depot login and depot login token on a machine with the Depot CLI, or supply DEPOT_TOKEN from CI.

This example uses the built-in cache and Alpine 3.22. Match the branch to your system.

Run the configuration commands as root. Add or update this host entry in /root/.netrc, replacing <depot-token> with your credential. Create the file with mode 0600 before saving the token:

machine packages.depot.dev
login depot
password <depot-token>

Install curl from the system's existing repositories before switching to Depot, then retrieve the public key using the same credential file:

apk add --no-cache curl
chmod 600 /root/.netrc
BASE="https://packages.depot.dev/<org-id>/alpine/alpine"
KEY_NAME="$(curl -fsS --netrc-file /root/.netrc "${BASE}/keys/current")"
curl -fsS --netrc-file /root/.netrc --output "/etc/apk/keys/${KEY_NAME}" "${BASE}/keys/${KEY_NAME}"
echo "${BASE}/v3.22/main" >> /etc/apk/repositories
apk update

This requires curl for key retrieval and apk-tools 2.14.12 or later for .netrc authentication. Match the branch to your Alpine installation. Add the community component when needed. Keep the returned key filename: each Depot Alpine repository has its own signing key.

For private packages, use your Private or Virtual repository name instead of alpine, and match its branch and component to the uploaded packages.

Use Depot in a container build

On apk-tools 2.14.12 and later, including Alpine 3.22, you can mount a .netrc secret and keep repository URLs free of credentials:

# syntax=docker/dockerfile:1
FROM alpine:3.22
COPY depot-repository.rsa.pub /etc/apk/keys/depot-repository.rsa.pub
RUN echo 'https://packages.depot.dev/<org-id>/alpine/alpine/v3.22/main' > /etc/apk/repositories
RUN --mount=type=secret,id=netrc,target=/root/.netrc apk add --no-cache curl

Replace depot-repository.rsa.pub in both paths with the actual key filename returned by keys/current. Supply a secret file containing:

machine packages.depot.dev
login depot
password <depot-token>

Authenticated URLs also work in /etc/apk/repositories, but that file is readable by all users and persists in container images. Don't store tokens there in images others can pull. apk doesn't use a general external credential-helper protocol.

Publish an APK

Upload each .apk produced by your build to a Private repository or writable Virtual repository. Include the branch, component, and architecture.

For this HTTP upload, set DEPOT_TOKEN in your shell.

curl --fail-with-body --user "depot:$DEPOT_TOKEN" \
  --upload-file widget-1.0.0-r0.apk \
  https://packages.depot.dev/<org-id>/alpine/internal/v3.22/main/x86_64/widget-1.0.0-r0.apk

Depot generates and signs APKINDEX.tar.gz. Don't upload or sign the index yourself. For the client's repository file syntax, see the apk repository reference.