pkgcli is a newly developed command-line client for PackageKit designed to be more user-friendly than the long-standing pkcon CLI, which had seen almost no development for nearly a decade and was mainly a testing front-end rather than a polished tool [1, 2]. Matthias Klumpp created pkgcli during the 2025/2026 Sovereign Tech Agency fellowship [1, 2].
Unlike pkcon, which directly mirrored the D-Bus API commands, pkgcli uses human-friendly command names such as show, search, and list-updates to simplify interaction for users [2]. The new client also provides colored output by default to improve readability and includes a JSON Lines scripting mode accessible via the --json argument [1, 2].
Pkgcli introduces sensible default behaviors like automatic cleanup of unused dependencies and a refreshed metadata cache age to streamline package management tasks [2]. Despite pkgcli’s release, pkcon remains optionally available to support backward compatibility in scripts that depend on it [2].
As of September 4, 2026, pkgcli is included in up-to-date Linux distributions shipping the latest versions of PackageKit, making it accessible to users across systems [1]. This availability marks a significant update to the PackageKit command-line experience after years of limited improvements.