tar2deb is a tool that takes a tar and outputs an deb. debpack is a golang library to create debs. Both are written in pure go, without using debuild (dpkg-buildpackage, fakeroot, lintian). API documentation for debpack can be found in 
$ go get -u github.com/dzeromsk/debpack/...This will make the tar2deb tool available in ${GOPATH}/bin, which by default means ~/go/bin.
tar2deb takes a tar file (from stdin or a specified filename), and outputs an deb.
Usage:
tar2deb [OPTION] [FILE]
Options:
-arch string
the deb architecture (default "all")
-description string
the package description
-file FILE
write deb to FILE instead of stdout
-maintainer string
the package maintainer (default "unknown")
-name string
the package name
-version string
the package version
Prepare workspace
$ mkdir -p testdata/usr/bin/
$ cp ~/bin/example testdata/usr/bin/Create archive
$ tar --mtime='1970-01-01 00:00:00Z' --owner=0 --group=0 --numeric-owner -Ctestdata -cf testdata/package.tar usr
$ tar tvf testdata/package.tar
drwxr-xr-x 0/0 0 1970-01-01 01:00 usr/
drwxr-xr-x 0/0 0 1970-01-01 01:00 usr/bin/
-rwxr-xr-x 0/0 3677513 1970-01-01 01:00 usr/bin/exampleCreate deb package
$ tar2deb -name package -version 1 -description "example package" -file testdata/package.deb testdata/package.tar Inspect and install
$ dpkg --info testdata/package.deb
new Debian package, version 2.0.
size 1881056 bytes: control archive=253 bytes.
116 bytes, 6 lines control
57 bytes, 1 lines md5sums
Package: package
Version: 1
Architecture: all
Installed-Size: 3591
Maintainer: unknown
Description: example package
$ dpkg -c testdata/package.deb
drwxr-xr-x 0/0 0 1970-01-01 01:00 usr
drwxr-xr-x 0/0 0 1970-01-01 01:00 usr/bin
-rwxr-xr-x 0/0 3677513 1970-01-01 01:00 usr/bin/example
$ sudo dpkg -i testdata/package.deb
Selecting previously unselected package package.
(Reading database ... 1234567 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack testdata/package.deb ...
Unpacking package (1) ...
Setting up package (1) ...
- Simple.
- No config files.
- You put files into the deb, so that deb/apt will install them on a host.
- Does not build anything.
- Does not try to auto-detect dependencies.
- Does not try to magically deduce on which computer architecture you run.
- Does not require any deb database or other state, and does not use the filesystem.
- Many features are missing.
- All of the artifacts are stored in memory, sometimes more than once.
- Less backwards compatible than
debpack.
tar2deb is influenced heavily in style and interface from the https://github.com/google/rpmpack package.