Channels and Repositories

Channels contain a list of one or more repositories. Repositories contain a list of one or more packages.

Channels → Repositories → Packages.

The public default channel and several of the repositories it collects are maintained at https://github.com/wbond/package_control_channel.

Examples of other repositories include those for the LSP and SublimeLinter package families.

More about channels

Channels are JSON files hosted on a URL that contains a list of repository URLs. When a user requests to install a package, their channels are queried for a list of repositories.

See the channel.json documentation for the format.

More about repositories

Repositories are JSON files hosted on a URL that contain a list of packages.

See the repository.json documentation for the format.

The JSON structure allows for specifying platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux), compatible versions of Sublime Text, labels, URLs and more. Each package is typically a GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket repo.

Managing your own package distribution

If you have packages that don't fit in the public channel, you can still use the Package Control client to distribute, discover and manage packages.

It is possible, although not very common, to create a private channel to distribute packages. It is usually easier to create a private repository JSON instead, which the Package Control client can also use to find and update packages. Even individual packages can be managed via the client, which can be especially convenient for small teams needing to manage a set of shared, proprietary, tools.

See the client package usage documentation for more details, about the various ways to add (collections of) packages to a Package Control installation.