How to handle multi-distribution and multi-component repos properly?

[carlosabalde]

I'm trying to set up a multi-distribution and multi-component repository. The documentation covers the basics, but I'm having trouble understanding the correct workflow for a few common scenarios. Let's assume publish repo is used to create a published repository for the first time using local repositories jammy:foo, jammy:bar, and jammy:baz (naming convention is <distribution>:<component>; I'm ignoring snapshots here for simplicity). Some time later:

• A new distribution with a couple of components needs to be added: noble:foo and noble:qux. A simple execution of publish repo with local repositories noble:foo and noble:qux should be enough. The published repository will contain the two distributions, each with its components. I assume this is the correct way to add a new distribution, but please, correct me if I'm wrong.

• A new component needs to be added to an existing distribution: jammy:quux. I couldn't find a clear explanation on how to do this, but apparently publish drop jammy followed by publish repo with the four local repositories seems to be the only option. Is this correct?

• A package with the exact same name but different contents needs to be added to jammy:foo. -force-replace is used in the repo add to make that possible. However, when running publish update jammy, aptly complains (not sure why). As before, publish drop jammy followed by publish repo seems to be the only option. Is this correct? I assume I could remove, publish, add, and publish again, but that seems unnecessarily complicated when trying to automate the process.

Any advice on how to handle these scenarios properly would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!