Quick start This guide will help you get started with zerobrew by walking through the most common commands and workflows.
Your first installation Let’s install a package using zerobrew. We’ll use jq, a popular command-line JSON processor:
Install a package
Run the install command: You’ll see output showing the installation progress: ==> Installing jq... ==> Resolving dependencies (1 packages)... jq 1.7.1 ==> Downloading and installing formulas... jq ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✓ installed ==> Installed 1 packages in 0.68s
Verify the installation
Check that jq is now available: You should see the version number printed. Installing multiple packages You can install multiple packages in a single command:
zerobrew will automatically:
Resolve all dependencies
Download packages in parallel
Install them efficiently using content-addressable storage
Working with Brewfiles Brewfiles allow you to manage your packages as code. This is useful for reproducible environments and dotfiles.
Create a Brewfile
Create a file named Brewfile in your project directory: # Development tools brew "git" brew "wget" brew "jq" # Programming languages brew "[email protected] " brew "node" # Optional: casks (macOS applications) # cask "docker-desktop"
Install from Brewfile
Install all packages from the Brewfile: Or specify a custom file: zb bundle install -f myfile
Export current packages
You can also export your currently installed packages to a Brewfile: To overwrite an existing file: zb bundle dump -f Brewfile --force
Running without installing Use zbx to run a package without linking it to your prefix:
This is useful for:
One-time commands
Testing packages before installation
Running different versions temporarily
Common commands Here’s a quick reference of the most common zerobrew commands:
Install packages
Manage packages
Bundle operations
Maintenance
# Install one package zb install jq # Install multiple packages zb install wget git curl # Build from source instead of using bottles zb install ffmpeg --build-from-source # Install without creating symlinks zb install libsodium --no-link
Advanced options zerobrew supports several global options:
Concurrency control Adjust the number of parallel operations (default is 20):
zb --concurrency 10 install ffmpeg
Custom directories Override the default installation directories:
zb --root /custom/root --prefix /custom/prefix install jq
Or use environment variables:
export ZEROBREW_ROOT = "/custom/root" export ZEROBREW_PREFIX = "/custom/prefix" zb install jq
Auto-initialize Automatically initialize zerobrew if not already set up:
zb --auto-init install jq
Shell completion Generate shell completion scripts for your shell:
zb completion bash > ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/zb
Understanding the output When you install a package, zerobrew shows detailed progress:
Indicates the package being installed.
==> Resolving dependencies (3 packages)... jq 1.7.1 oniguruma 6.9.9 libffi 3.4.4
Shows all packages that will be installed, including dependencies.
==> Downloading and installing formulas... jq ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✓ installed oniguruma ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✓ installed libffi ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✓ installed
Progress bars for each package showing download and installation status.
==> Installed 3 packages in 1.23s
Summary with total time elapsed.
Next steps
Commands reference Explore all available zerobrew commands and options
Configuration Learn about environment variables and configuration options
Remember that zerobrew is experimental. If you encounter issues with a specific formula, you can always fall back to using Homebrew for that package while using zerobrew for others.