Coldbrew

A Homebrew-compatible package manager in Rust - user-controlled, fast, and reproducible.

Features

• Fast: Written in Rust for maximum performance
• Reproducible: Project lockfiles ensure consistent installs
• Multi-version: Install multiple versions of packages side-by-side
• Shim-based: Like mise, resolves versions based on project configuration
• Homebrew-compatible: Uses Homebrew's formula index and bottles

Design Docs

• Core principles, CLI behavior, and Homebrew integration: docs/core-principles-homebrew.md
• Parallel install pipeline plan: docs/parallel-pipeline.md

Installation

Coldbrew is not published on crates.io yet.

Install from GitHub Releases (recommended)

1. Download the appropriate archive from the GitHub Releases page: https://github.com/swiftlysingh/coldbrew/releases
2. Extract the crew binary.
3. Move it to a directory on your PATH (for example, /usr/local/bin or ~/.local/bin).
4. Run crew --help to verify it works.

Note: Linux release artifacts are not currently tested in CI. Please report any issues.

Install from source (dev)

Install from source:

git clone https://github.com/swiftlysingh/coldbrew
cd coldbrew
cargo install --path .

Quick Start

# Update the package index
crew update

# Search for packages
crew search jq

# Install a package
crew install jq

# List installed packages
crew list

# Show package info
crew info jq

Project Configuration

Create a coldbrew.toml in your project:

[packages]
node = "22"
python = "3.12"
jq = "1.7"

[dev_packages]
rust = "1.75"

Then run:

crew lock    # Generate lockfile
crew install # Install from lockfile

Global Configuration

Global settings live in ~/.coldbrew/config.toml. Example:

[settings]
parallel_downloads = 8      # min(cpus * 2, 16)
parallel_extractions = 3    # min(cpus - 1, 4)
parallel_codesigning = 2    # min(cpus, 4)
parallel_installs = 3       # min(cpus - 1, 4)
per_bottle_progress = false # show per-bottle download bars

Commands

Command	Description
update	Update the package index
search <query>	Search for packages
info <package>	Show package details
install <packages>	Install packages
uninstall <packages>	Uninstall packages
upgrade [packages]	Upgrade packages
list	List installed packages
which <binary>	Show which package provides a binary
pin <package>	Pin a package version
default <package@version>	Set default version
init	Create coldbrew.toml
lock	Generate lockfile
tap <user/repo>	Add third-party repository
space	Show disk usage and cleanup candidates
space clean [--all] [--dry-run]	Interactive cleanup
doctor	Check for problems

Man Page

The repository includes a manual page at docs/crew.1.

Install it locally:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/man/man1
cp docs/crew.1 ~/.local/share/man/man1/
man crew

Development

Enable the repository hooks (run once per clone):

git config core.hooksPath .githooks

The pre-commit hook runs cargo fmt and re-stages Rust files that were already staged so formatting issues are fixed before you commit. If cargo fmt is missing, install rustfmt with:

rustup component add rustfmt

License

MIT