microsoft / microsoft/winget-cli

Winget should support deprecating packages AKA hiding packages from search

Open
#4,344 1 comment 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Area-Manifest Issue-Feature
Dominant language
C++
Stars
26.4k
Forks
1.8k
Avg merge
1d 11h
Merged PRs (30d)
15

Description

Description of the new feature / enhancement

Today winget displays all available packages in "winget search". Some packages may want to hide older packages from search if they are deprecated but still want users to be able to download them if they already know their ID. Hence winget should support marking a package as "deprecated" or "hidden from search" to facilitate this scenario.

Proposed technical implementation details

Add a tag/field to package manifests so that a package can be hidden from winget search but can still be installed if the user knows its ID.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing package manifest handling in the winget search and install-by-ID flows. Determine how a deprecated or hidden field should be represented in manifests, excluded from search, and retained for installation, then add coverage for both behaviors.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
cli
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.