[Application] or [Runtime]¶

Metadata for applications starts with an [Application] group, metadata for runtimes with a [Runtime] group.

The following keys can be present in these groups:

name (string)

runtime (string)

sdk (string)

command (string)

required-flatpak (string list)

tags (string list)

[Context]¶

This group determines various system resources that may be shared with the application when it is run in a flatpak sandbox.

Conditional Permissions

sockets=wayland;if:x11:!has-wayland;if:x11:false

sockets=x11;if:x11:!has-wayland;

sockets=!x11;

sockets=!x11;x11;if:x11:!has-wayland;

All keys in this group (and the group itself) are optional.

The keys supported in this group are:

shared (list)

sockets (list)

devices (list)

filesystems (list)

persistent (list)

features (list)

unset-environment (list)

[Instance]¶

This group only appears in /.flatpak-info for a running app, and not in the metadata files written by application authors. It is filled in by Flatpak itself.

instance-id (string)

instance-path (string)

app-path (string)

original-app-path (string)

app-commit (string)

app-extensions (list of strings)

branch (string)

arch (string)

flatpak-version (string)

runtime-path (string)

original-runtime-path (string)

runtime-commit (string)

runtime-extensions (list of strings)

extra-args (string)

sandbox (boolean)

build (boolean)

session-bus-proxy (boolean)

system-bus-proxy (boolean)

[Session Bus Policy]¶

If the sockets key is not allowing full access to the D-Bus session bus, then flatpak provides filtered access.

The default policy for the session bus only allows the application to own its own application ID, its subnames and its own application ID as a subname of org.mpris.MediaPlayer2. For instance if the app is called org.my.App, it can only own org.my.App, org.my.App.* and org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.org.my.App. It is only allowed to talk to names matching those patterns, plus the bus itself (org.freedesktop.DBus) and the portal APIs (bus names of the form org.freedesktop.portal.*).

Additionally the app is always allowed to reply to messages sent to it, and emit broadcast signals (but these will not reach other sandboxed apps unless they are allowed to talk to your app.

If the [Session Bus Policy] group is present, it provides policy for session bus access.

Each key in this group has the form of a D-Bus bus name or prefix thereof, for example org.gnome.SessionManager or org.freedesktop.portal.*.

The possible values for an entry are the following, in increasing order of access. Each value implies all the access from any lower values:

none

see

talk

own

[System Bus Policy]¶

If the sockets key is not allowing full access to the D-Bus system bus, then flatpak does not make the system bus available unless the [System Bus Policy] group is present and provides a policy for filtered access. Available since 0.2.

Entries in this group have the same form as for the [Session Bus Policy] group. However, the app has no permissions by default.

[Environment]¶

The [Environment] group specifies environment variables to set when running the application. Available since 0.3.

Entries in this group have the form VAR=VALUE where VAR is the name of an environment variable to set.

Note that environment variables can also be unset (removed from the environment) by listing them in the unset-environment entry of the [Context] group.

[Extension NAME]¶

Runtimes and applications can define extension points, which allow optional, additional runtimes to be mounted at a specified location inside the sandbox when they are present on the system. Typical uses for extension points include translations for applications, or debuginfo for sdks. The name of the extension point is specified as part of the group heading. Since 0.11.4, the name may optionally include a tag in the NAME in the name@tag ref syntax if you wish to use different configurations (eg, versions) of the same extension concurrently. The "tag" is effectively ignored, but is necessary in order to allow the same extension name to be specified more than once.

directory (string)

version (string)

versions (string)

add-ld-path (string)

merge-dirs (string)

download-if (string)

autoprune-unless (string)

enable-if (string)

subdirectory-suffix (string)

subdirectories (boolean)

no-autodownload (boolean)

locale-subset (boolean)

autodelete (boolean)

collection-id (string)

[ExtensionOf]¶

This optional group may be present if the runtime is an extension.

ref (string)

runtime (string)

priority (integer)

tag (string)

[Extra Data]¶

This optional group may be present if the runtime or application uses extra data that gets downloaded separately. The data in this group gets merged into the repository summary, with the xa.extra-data-sources key.

If multiple extra data sources are present, their uri, size and checksum keys are grouped together by using the same suffix. If only one extra data source is present, the suffix can be omitted.

NoRuntime (boolean)

uriX (string)

sizeX (integer)

checksumX (string)

[Policy SUBSYSTEM]¶

Subsystems can define their own policies to be placed in a group whose name has this form. Their values are treated as lists, in which items can have their meaning negated by prepending ! to the value. They are not otherwise parsed by Flatpak. Available since 0.6.13.

[USB Devices]¶

USB devices can be enumerable or hidden by the USB portal as specified by the keys in this group. The vendor and product ids are validated by Flatpak, but aren't otherwise used or parsed. This merely grant the permission to enumerate USB device for use by the portal. This does give access to the devices. Available since 1.15.11.

enumerable-devices (string list)

hidden-devices (string list)