If you run Debian testing, unstable, or just like upgrading early, there is a familiar kind of pain: APT itself works fine, but the package you just pulled in is already known to be broken.

That is exactly the gap apt-listbugs tries to close.

Before APT installs or upgrades packages, apt-listbugs can query the Debian Bug Tracking System (BTS) for known bugs affecting the versions you are about to install. If it finds bugs that match your configured severity filters, it warns you before the upgrade goes through.

That makes it especially useful on Debian systems where package freshness matters, but so does not breaking the box.

What apt-listbugs actually does

According to the Debian manpage, apt-listbugs is intended to be invoked before package installation or upgrade so it can query the Debian BTS for bugs that would be introduced by the pending APT action.…