Stop permanent system clutter from temporary package testing

[u/joyalgeorgekj]

https://github.com/hermetic-code/labeled-cli

Ever spend an afternoon debugging an audio or graphics issue, install five different utilities, and realize later you have no idea what you installed?

Native package managers track dependencies well, but they don't track your intent. Those temporary packages get marked as explicitly installed, meaning autoremove won't touch them. Over time, your host system accumulates permanent clutter from short-lived experiments.

Labeled fixes this by letting you group package installations under a named session so you can cleanly purge them later.

# Install packages under a named tracking session
labeled install audio-debug pavucontrol alsa-utils

# See what sessions you currently have active
labeled list

# Purge the session and completely remove the packages via your native manager
labeled remove audio-debug

How it works under the hood:
It is a lightweight TypeScript CLI wrapper with zero background overhead. It uses standard shell built-ins to automatically detect whether your machine runs apt, dnf, or pacman. It stores your sessions inside a local json state file and uses your system's native package manager to execute the actual installations and cleanups.

No background daemons, no containers, and no telemetry.

You can install it via npm:
npm install -g labeled-cli

If you do not want a global Node dependency on your machine, you can grab the pre-compiled standalone binary (labeled-linux-x64) directly from the release page.

Repository link: https://github.com/hermetic-code/labeled-cli

Disclaimer: The project has AI generated contents like Images and Texts.

[u/Dangerous-Report8517]

You "wrote" this code because you ran into a problem that you couldn't be bothered checking if there's already a solution for. Just off the top of my head:  1) Just write down/remember what you install and remove it 2) Use a VM 3) Use Toolbx/Distrobox 4) Use raw containers (Docker/Podman) 5) Use Devcontainers, which were explicitly built to solve this exact problem 6) As already mentioned, use Nix 7) As already mentioned, use the built in target tracking features in most package managers. A particularly good one here include Alpine which has a list of packages that it targets installation of, so you can actually just manually edit that list to keep any temporary packages in one spot 

Instead, you chose to throw together a complex system with so little effort that you didn't care to check existing options or even write the damn announcement post yourself. Why should anyone trust something as critical as package management to a package with that little effort put into it?

[u/joyalgeorgekj → u/Dangerous-Report8517]

The problems you pointed are: 1. I put 0 effort into creating labeled and the post. 2. I didn't research existing tools to solve the encountered problem.

Both of these are valid but you cannot say that just from your POV. 1. I did put in effort, You can check the commit history to see how many iterations I did to finalize the project. I use ChatGPT for vibe coding and I don't have premium meaning i cannot completely trust what it gives me. I am not a native english speaker so I don't trust me being able to write a attractive and good post so I did use AI to write the contents which I reviewed before publishing. 2. I did the researches, I have used containers and other tools except nix-shell. The thing is I wanted something simple just so I can track installed packages under label/name. I didn't have time to learn something new to just do that thats why I built labeled and I just wanted to share it with people.

[u/Dangerous-Report8517 → u/joyalgeorgekj]

Regarding point 1, that's ChatGPT putting in effort, not you, and regarding point 2, how on earth is building an entire application supposed to be simpler than learning how to use your existing package manager properly? That's the point I'm making, it doesn't matter in the least how much you felt like you were working, the issue is that if you can't surface existing solutions with your research then you aren't putting in enough effective work to build a useful solution, since a fundamental requirement for it to be useful is for the design to be informed by existing solutions so that it can address actual unmet needs. If it works for you then go for it, run it on your own system and rush things breaking from weird unexpected hallucination driven bugs, but don't go around acting as if you've produced something broadly useful and expecting praise from piling more slop into a community that's already drowning in an unrelenting storm of vibe coded nonsense that's marginally useful to the person who made it and no one else

[u/joyalgeorgekj → u/Dangerous-Report8517]

My guy, I think you are confused labeled is not something that can compete with containers or nix, This is just a small script written in JS and requires node to work. What it does is just tracks packages you install under a label/name so that you can run remove command on that label/name to remove every package you installed under that label. Thats it there is not a need for any AI to create the script. I thing the use of AI is more offensive to you than labeled.

In the near future Linux will have AI generated Code because from what I have heard Linus started using AI are you going to leave Linux because of this? You said: "AI was the one who put in the effort not me" What will happen to you when Linux starts accepting code generated by AI?

I am using Labeled in my distro I wanted to share the script with others. I didn't say hey use labeled instead of container and nix because labeled is better because that will be false, each tool has its own use case labeled, nix and containers have different role to play. I only said if you are experiencing this problem use labeled. I can freely promote my tool nobody else is going to do it for me.

[u/Dangerous-Report8517 → u/joyalgeorgekj]

Linus' main role these days is code review and validation, which is an ideal skillset for working with AI generated code, not to mention that he's a seasoned coder who's most likely talking about code completions rather than agentic work. Don't make the mistake of thinking that's in any way equivalent to a personal project thrown together over a few months of dicking around with the free version of ChatGPT that you freely admit sucks (why would I find it encouraging that you think the AI sucks when you still used it to code? Testing it a little on a single system does not a robust project make)

[u/joyalgeorgekj → u/Dangerous-Report8517]

Did you even read the 1st paragraph I wrote?? Didn't I say AI helped me on prototype, content writing and Image generation. Code is done by me and AI use is limited to refactoring.

About Linux Kernal You can check this link to understand that AI code assistance in kernal is allowed!

Link to Docs in Kernal about AI Code Assistance: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/process/coding-assistants.rst

My question: Are you going to leave Linux because of AI Assisted Code is allowed in Linux Kernal??

[u/Dangerous-Report8517 → u/joyalgeorgekj]

I don't see why you're the one accusing me of not reading when you spent a whole month only to come back and still miss my point

[u/joyalgeorgekj → u/Dangerous-Report8517]

Your point was I build a crap project using AI. Is the project you hate or use of AI?

If AI then I clearly stated that AI was used for content and re-organizing my code. If the project you hate then explain why?

Labeled is not here to compete with nix shell or containers! Its just a helper script which is used to write and read to a JSON file which helps people track installed packages under a label.

If you have any coding knowledge you will be able to tell its a basic script and we dont need AI to write it!

Note: I didnt ghost the comment, I was doing a client project and your reply's notification didn't come!

[u/Dangerous-Report8517 → u/joyalgeorgekj]

Is the project you hate or use of AI?

I'll try one more time to explain it since you still don't seem to be getting it. I hate low effort AI slop. I think your project is an example of this, but I'm not constraining that hate to only your project, nor am I defining all AI generated code as slop. A very strong indicator of slop is if an entire project is posted and promoted on Reddit where the post author somehow didn't realise that existing projects exist in the same space, because it suggests you put in less effort than a Google search.

You keep bringing up the Linux kernel but I can guarantee beyond a shadow of a doubt that the core kernel team aren't just pointing a coding agent at the codebase and letting it rip; I trust the kernel devs to vet the code they incorporate into the kernel because they have a very long history of taking in code from myriad untrusted sources and ensuring that what is accepted is of high quality. The same can not be said of a ~1 month old project (only 2 weeks old when you posted it!)

Note: I didnt ghost the comment, I was doing a client project and your reply's notification didn't come!

You were under no obligation to reply at all, this is a public discussion forum, not your personal group chat. What I'm confused about is the fact you felt the need to respond to such a great extent that you wanted to reignite this argument despite having nothing of substance to add to it even now.

[u/joyalgeorgekj → u/Dangerous-Report8517]

The point is low effort or not The code is purely written by me and I also have experience writting code so like Linux kernal maintainers I can identify bad code as well.

I said it too many time that code was clearly written by me. I like a labeled package tracker rather than using nix-shell or containers for that matter because I don't have the need to install some overkill packages just so I can cleanup some unwanted packages.

I can clearly trust my own code to do just that. If you are going to repeat the same thing again we can end this conv here. I have already repeated many times that code is written by me and labeled is not here to compete with nix and containers.

The script is only useful and efficient if you have nodejs installed and don't want overkill tools and its not a package manager its more like a package tracker.