When a new user installs Ubuntu, on first boot they get presented a ‘wizard’ which asks a few questions and offers a selection of software to install. We have a hidden section in the store called ubuntu-firstrun which can be queried via the store API with:-
curl 'http://api.snapcraft.io/api/v1/snaps/search?section=ubuntu-firstrun' | jq
You can also see it via a browser at https://api.snapcraft.io/api/v1/snaps/search?section=ubuntu-firstrun .
So the store is returning the right content code, skype, spotify, slack, pycharm-community, android-studio, intellij-idea-community, krita, plexmediaserver, sublime-text, vlc, gimp, gitkraken, discord, hiri, bitwarden, simplenote, zenkit, darktable, xonotic, obs-studio, shotcut, telegram-desktop, opera, mailspring, wavebox, irccloud-desktop, audacity.
However, if you install Ubuntu today, and get the “Ready to go” screen screen you’ll see what’s in the featured category as seen at https://api.snapcraft.io/api/v1/snaps/search?section=featured .
Here’s what you get (which is wrong):
I’m told the code which does the store query via snapd-glib is located at https://git.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-desktop/ubuntu/+source/gnome-initial-setup/tree/debian/patches/0001-Add-Ubuntu-mode-with-special-pages.patch#n909 .
Has something changed in snapd or within snapd-glib which means the results from the store for a hidden category don’t bubble up to the calling program?