# RPi-Distro/pi-gen

Tool used to create the official Raspberry Pi OS images

Repository: https://github.com/RPi-Distro/pi-gen
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/pi-gen
Language: Shell
License: BSD-3-Clause
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-06-19T09:54:29+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 72/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 88, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3796, "days_push": 75, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3236, forks 1878 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:50.267577+00:00)

## What it is
pi-gen is the official tool used to build Raspberry Pi OS disk images and custom images based on it. It orchestrates staged builds using debootstrap, qemu-user, and shell scripts on Debian-based systems or via Docker.

## Use cases
- build a custom raspberry pi os image
- create a preconfigured os image for raspberry pi deployments
- customize raspberry pi os with my own packages and settings
- reproduce official raspberry pi os images from source
- build a headless raspberry pi image with ssh pre-enabled
- generate arm64 raspberry pi os images

## When to choose
- you need a fully customized Raspberry Pi OS image built reproducibly from scratch
- you want to bake packages, configs, or first-boot scripts directly into an OS image
- you are maintaining a Raspberry Pi OS derivative

## When to avoid
- you just want to flash a stock Raspberry Pi OS image to an SD card
- you want to customize a running system rather than build an image
- you need images for non-Raspberry-Pi hardware or non-Debian bases

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: build-tool, developer-tools, deployment
- domain: operating-systems, developer-tools, embedded-systems
- platform: cli
- tags: raspberry-pi, os-image-builder, debootstrap, shell-scripting, custom-images, linux, docker

## Member repositories
- RPi-Distro/pi-gen (main) score 72

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:50.267577+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T07:24:35.022504+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/RPi-Distro/pi-gen (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:50.267577+00:00, sha 8dc07e7439be)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.