Package and Project Managers

These package managers are used to install the tools and apps at the user level ("global"), depending on system and architecture:

• mise: primary global and project package manager
• devbox: fallback global and project package manager
• nix: system and user package manager
• brew: system package manager

Package Managers by operating system:

• macOS (ARM and AMD):
  • mise: tracked lock file; multi-user
  • devbox: tracked lock file; multi-user
  • nix: no tracked lock file; multi-user
  • brew: no tracked lock file; multi-user
• Linux AMD:
  • mise: tracked lock file; multi-user
  • devbox: tracked lock file; single-user
  • nix: no tracked lock file; single-user
  • brew: no tracked lock file; multi-user
• Linux ARM:
  • mise: tracked lock file; multi-user
  • devbox: tracked lock file; single-user
  • nix: no tracked lock file; single-user

Their priority order is:

1. mise: Primary package and project environment manager (tasks/scripts and environment variables)
2. devbox: Fallback for dependencies not found in mise registry (deprecated). Nixhub, the Devbox's registry, is way larger than any other, so it's kept as a fallback option for packages not available in Mise, particularly for macOS (darwin) where some packages like eza, aichat, and pnpm are not supported by the Mise backends.
3. brew and nix: Used to install some user-level dependencies. Bootstrapping them requires sudo permissions, but once installed, the user can use them to install packages without sudo.

Mise

mise is cross-platform, and is the primary tool for both package and project environment management (tasks/scripts and environment variables).

Mise Global Environment

For managing packages globally, e.g.

# Installs package globally
mise use -g fd
# Add ~/.local/config/config.{toml,lock}
chezmoi re-add

For packages available in the Aqua registry but not directly in Mise:

mise use -g aqua:organization/package@version

and

mise install

for installing the dependencies declared in mise.toml and mise.lock.

Update packages as

mise upgrade

or using the mise task:

mise run mise:update

Lock dependencies to specific versions:

mise run mise:lock

Project Environment

For managing a project, e.g.

cd your-project
mise use node
mise use python@3.11
git add mise.toml mise.lock
git commit -m "build: add node and python dependencies"

For instantiating a Mise-managed project, simply running

mise install

will install the dependencies declared in mise.toml and mise.lock.

Mise Tasks

Mise also manages tasks (scripts) that can be run with:

mise run task-name

To see all available tasks:

# Print list
mise tasks

# Interactize fuzzy search
mise run

Devbox

devbox is now deprecated but kept as a fallback for packages not available in the Mise registry, particularly for macOS (darwin) where some packages like eza, aichat, and pnpm are not available for macOS in the Mise registry backends.

Devbox Global Environment

For managing packages globally:

# Add a global package
devbox global add <package>

# Update global packages
devbox global update

The Devbox environment is automatically activated via direnv integration, so there's no need to run devbox shell manually.

Devbox Project Environment

For managing a project with Devbox:

# Initialize a new project
cd your-project
devbox init

# Add project dependencies
devbox add <package>

# Install project dependencies
devbox install

# Update project dependencies
devbox update

UPT

UPT is a cross-platform package manager that wraps the default package manager shipped by the vendor on each platform. Homebrew is the one exception, which is an external dependency. It is also an exception in the sense that it must not be run with sudo. All other platform's system package managers do require sudo.

For this reason Mise task upt is available. It is a Chezmoi template that omits the sudo prefix on MacOS, and is used like

mise run upt install my-tool