For the most part it's like building software from source the old-school way, roughly:

{{{
configure --prefix=/usr/local
make

make DESTDIR=/tmp/package install-strip
# or is it
DESTDIR=/tmp/package make install-strip

# jiggle things around so the files are clean and sane:
chmod as needed to remove setgid bit
make separate dirs as needed, if your software should be split into multiple components (eg. executable + library/headers)
mksquashfs /tmp/package package.tcz -all-root -noappend
}}}

Some software is more tedious because they're made for other build systems. So you need to install that first before you can build.


= Worked example with Jose =

I'm not sure why I have two install phases shown in my old notes...
{{{
tc@primer:~/jose/build$ sudo meson install --no-rebuild
Installing lib/libjose.so.0.0.0 to /usr/local/lib
Installing cmd/jose to /usr/local/bin
Installing /home/tc/jose/build/jose/jose.h to /usr/local/include/jose
Installing /home/tc/jose/jose/cfg.h to /usr/local/include/jose
Installing /home/tc/jose/jose/io.h to /usr/local/include/jose
Installing /home/tc/jose/jose/b64.h to /usr/local/include/jose
Installing /home/tc/jose/jose/jwk.h to /usr/local/include/jose
Installing /home/tc/jose/jose/jws.h to /usr/local/include/jose
Installing /home/tc/jose/jose/jwe.h to /usr/local/include/jose
Installing /home/tc/jose/jose/openssl.h to /usr/local/include/jose
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-alg.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-fmt.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-b64-dec.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-b64-enc.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-jwe-dec.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-jwe-enc.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-jwe-fmt.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-jwk-exc.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-jwk-gen.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-jwk-pub.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-jwk-thp.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-jwk-use.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-jws-fmt.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-jws-sig.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/ronn/jose-jws-ver.1 to /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/doxygen/man/man3/jose_b64.3 to /usr/local/share/man/man3
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/doxygen/man/man3/jose_jwk.3 to /usr/local/share/man/man3
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/doxygen/man/man3/jose_jws.3 to /usr/local/share/man/man3
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/doxygen/man/man3/jose_cfg.3 to /usr/local/share/man/man3
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/doxygen/man/man3/jose_jwe.3 to /usr/local/share/man/man3
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/doxygen/man/man3/jose_io_t.3 to /usr/local/share/man/man3
Installing /home/tc/jose/doc/doxygen/man/man3/jose_io.3 to /usr/local/share/man/man3
Installing /home/tc/jose/build/meson-private/jose.pc to /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig

DESTDIR=/home/tc/BUILDROOT/jose ninja install
}}}


Now some sanitisation of the outputs:
{{{
# current working directory is probably ~/BUILDROOT/jose/
rm -rf usr/local/share/
chmod -R g-s ~/BUILDROOT/jose/

find . | xargs file | grep "executable" | grep ELF | grep "not stripped" | cut -f1 -d':' | xargs strip --strip-unneeded
find . | xargs file | grep "shared object" | grep ELF | grep "not stripped" | cut -f1 -d':' | xargs strip -g 

# Now check that usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/jose.pc looks vanilla and sane.
}}}

Make the archive and checksum:
{{{
mksquashfs jose jose.tcz
md5sum jose.tcz > jose.tcz.md5.txt
}}}

Generate the file listing, you might need to select the subtree manually like in this case where I only captured `usr/`:
{{{
cd jose/
find usr -not -type d > jose.tcz.list
}}}

libjansson is a dependency for jose that we built earlier, so make note of that
{{{
echo jansson.tcz > jose.tcz.dep
}}}

Write a `.info` file that describes the package, crib from existing files where possible.

Wrangle the deps some more so that it can get jose => jansson => libcrypto from jansson-dev.


= Another example with more scripting and automation =

Ideally we'd like to set a couple variables and then run a fixed set of commands that don't require much thinking. This is pretty close to that.

{{{
NAME=http-parser

mkdir -p /home/tc/BUILDROOT/$NAME

DESTDIR=/home/tc/BUILDROOT/$NAME make install-strip

cd ~/BUILDROOT/
chmod -R g-s $NAME
find $NAME/usr/local/include -type f -execdir chmod -x {} \;
mksquashfs $NAME $NAME.tcz
md5sum $NAME.tcz > $NAME.tcz.md5.txt
}}}

Then the other steps as mentioned above.