Here are a few ideas: For checking if a dependency is newer, use this script: aurPkgs=$(pacman -Qm | cut -d ' ' -f 1) for aurPkg in $aurPkgs; do aurDte=$(pacman -Qi $aurPkg | grep "Install Date" | cut -d ':' -f 2- | date '+%s') depPkgs=$(pacman -Qi $aurPkg | grep "Depends On" | cut -d ':' -f 2-) for depPkg in $depPkgs; do depDte=$(pacman -Qi $depPkg | grep "Install Date" | cut -d ':' -f 2- | date '+%s') if [[ $aurDte < $depDte ]]; then echo "update $aurPkg given $depPkg is more recent" fi done done I keep all my aur git repos in a directory and execute the following to see if there is anything new. It cd's into any git repo and fetches, printing out any updates: TEMP_OLDPWD=$OLDPWD for d in $(dirname $(find -name "\.git")); do cd $d echo "fetching " $d git fetch cd $OLDPWD done OLDPWD=$TEMP_OLDPWD To make custom changes to pkgbuilds, just create a branch in git (this assumes you are using aur4) and merge each time there is an update. The workflow would look something like this: git checkout -b my_branch git fetch git merge master # now do normal makepkg build/install step Eric ________________________________________ From: arch-general <arch-general-bounces@archlinux.org> on behalf of MichaĆ Zegan <webczat_200@poczta.onet.pl> Sent: Sunday, December 6, 2015 12:52 PM To: General Discussion about Arch Linux Subject: [arch-general] best practices for rebuilding packages Hello. If I have a package build from aur that depends on a library, and the library is updated, and package from aur requires rebuild, is it possible to somehow track and automate that? In other cases maintaining such configurations may be the trouble as you have to remember what aur packages depend on your library. Another question: what about modifying aur/abs pkgbuilds, like I replace the whole configure line because I want to do so, but to do such a configuration for a new version of the package, I have to manually modify any new pkgbuild I get to get the same result. How to make it nicer?