Hi.

In case it helps, debhelper has already a provision for these kind of things:

HOME, XDG_*
In compat 13 and later, these environment variables are reset before invoking the
upstream build system via the dh_auto_* helpers. The variables HOME (all dh_auto_*
helpers) and XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (dh_auto_test only) will be set to a writable directory.
All remaining variables and XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (except for during dh_auto_test) will be
cleared.

The HOME directory will be created as an empty directory but it will be reused between
calls to dh_auto_*. Any content will persist until explicitly deleted or dh_clean.

So, maybe by using this feature it would be possible to simplify whatever solution you
had in mind.

(One of the times where a new imagemagick broke a bunch of packages, I remember that this
feature, for packages already using compat 13, made the fix to be a lot simpler and nicer).

Thanks.

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