package

Manages a system package through the host's native package manager.

Supported package managers

Maddock auto-detects the package manager at agent startup by probing $PATH in this order:

1. dnf — Fedora, Rocky, Alma, RHEL 8+.
2. apt — Debian, Ubuntu.

If neither is found, the agent fails fast at startup with a clear error. There is no way to override the choice today; the expectation is that each target host has exactly one relevant package manager.

Attributes

Attribute	Type	Required	Description
state	string	yes	present to install, absent to remove.

Behavior

• Check queries the package database:

  • dpkg-query --status <pkg> on apt.
  • rpm --query <pkg> on dnf.

  If the binary exits 0, the package is considered installed.

• Apply invokes the manager non-interactively:

  • apt-get install --yes <pkg> / apt-get remove --yes <pkg>.
  • dnf install --assumeyes <pkg> / dnf remove --assumeyes <pkg>.

  Apply only runs if check shows a mismatch, so running the same manifest twice is idempotent.

Requirements

• The agent must run as a user that can call the package manager (typically root). apt-get and dnf both need write access to system paths.
• On Debian/Ubuntu targets, apt-get update is not run automatically — make sure the package index is recent enough to resolve the packages you reference.

Examples

Install a package

- package:
    htop:
      state: present

Remove a package

- package:
    vim-tiny:
      state: absent

Several packages in one manifest

- package:
    curl:
      state: present
    htop:
      state: present
    git:
      state: present

Each entry under package: is an independent resource, so the report shows one line per package.

Known limitations

• No version pinning. Only present / absent are supported. If you need a specific version, that's a future improvement.
• No package groups or virtual packages. Only concrete package names are tested.
• No repository management. Adding a custom repo is outside the scope of the resource; use your base-image or configuration management of choice.