bvm - Binary Version Manager
A version manager for all binaries.
NOTICE: This is a proof of concept. It is not recommended to use it yet as there will likely be many breaking changes.
Goals
- Seamless version selection based on current working directory.
- Replace binary specific version manager tools.
- No centralization—all urls and paths.
- Allows for easily distributing approved binaries within an organization.
- Easy for binary authors to distribute their applications.
- Support completely different application binaries with the same command name.
- Backwards compatibility loading project configuration files (once hitting 1.0)
- Works on Windows without needing WSL.
- Allows working with binaries already on the path (ex.
bvm use deno path
).
Setup
- For now, install
bvm
via cargo—cargo install bvm
. - Manually add the shims folder as the first item on the path:
- Windows:
C:\Users\<user-name>\AppData\Local\bvm\bvm\shims
- Mac/Linux:
~/.local/share/bvm/shims
- Windows:
- Add a .bvmrc.json file to your project and specify the paths to the binary manifest files.
Or specify with checksums to ensure the remote files don't change:{ "postInstall": "", // optional post install commands "binaries": [ "https://bvm.land/deno/1.3.1.json", "https://bvm.land/dprint/0.9.1.json" ] }
{ "binaries": [ "https://bvm.land/deno/1.3.1.json@c6fc34cc8a48a6b7c0b9bf12af51f07edb3f33cd295582a6b52632abf5e5c09e", "https://bvm.land/dprint/0.9.1.json@d667c18b9c78d18a991602bdb180b8fbc4e17e68c12e3a49bebdd0a17c2f4ad2" ] }
- Run
bvm install
Commands
bvm init
Creates an empty .bvmrc.json
file in the current directory.
bvm install
Downloads & installs the binaries in the current .bvmrc.json
configuration file and associates them on the path with bvm if not previously done.
- Provide the
--use
flag to also use all the binaries in the configuration file on the path when outside this directory. - Provide the
--force
flag to force an install of everything even if already installed.
bvm install [url]
Installs a binary at the specified manifest file.
# Examples
bvm install https://bvm.land/deno/1.3.1.json
# optionally specify a checksum
bvm install https://bvm.land/deno/1.3.1.json@c6fc34cc8a48a6b7c0b9bf12af51f07edb3f33cd295582a6b52632abf5e5c09e
# if a previous installation is on the path, use this one instead
bvm install --use https://bvm.land/deno/1.3.1.json
- Provide the
--use
flag to force using this binary on the path (happens automatically if nothing is on the path). - Provide the
--force
flag to force an install even if already installed.
bvm use [binary-name or owner-name/binary-name] [version]
Uses the specified binary name and version globally.
The binary and version must have been previously installed.
# Examples
bvm use deno 1.3.1
bvm use denoland/deno 1.3.1
bvm use name-stealer/deno 2.0.0
bvm use [binary-name or owner-name/binary-name] path
Use the version of the binary that's installed on the path if it exists.
# Example
bvm use deno path
bvm use
Use all the binaries in the current configuration files globally on the path.
Generally it's not necessary to ever use this command as this happens automatically being in the current directory.
bvm resolve [binary name]
Resolves the executable path of the specified binary based on the current working directory.
This command is used by the created shell/batch files (shims) to tell how to resolve the file.
# Example
bvm resolve deno
# on windows, outputs: C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\bvm\bvm\binaries\denoland\deno\1.3.1\deno.exe
bvm uninstall [binary-name or owner-name/binary-name] [version]
Uninstalls the specified binary version.
# Examples
bvm uninstall deno 1.2.0
bvm uninstall denoland/deno 1.3.1
bvm uninstall name-stealer/deno 2.0.0
bvm list
Displays the installed binaries.
Example output:
denoland/deno 1.2.0
denoland/deno 1.3.1
dprint/dprint 9.0.1
Redirect Service
The website https://bvm.land is a redirect service. If you publish a bvm.json file as a GitHub release asset (not recommended yet, due to this being a proof of concept) then you can use https://bvm.land
to redirect to your release:
https://bvm.land/<owner>/<name>/<release-tag>.json
->https://github.com/<owner>/<name>/releases/download/<release-tag>/bvm.json
https://bvm.land/<name>/<release-tag>.json
->https://github.com/<name>/<name>/releases/download/<release-tag>/bvm.json
Example: https://bvm.land/dprint/0.9.1.json
Binary manifest file
At the moment, it looks like this:
Supported types: zip
, exe
, tar.gz
(will add more later)
Other examples:
- Multiple commands: https://bvm.land/node/14.9.0.json
Future improvements
Low effort:
bvm clear-url-cache
- Clear the url caches, but not the binary caches.- Progress bars everywhere!!
Medium effort:
- Ability to specify a range of supported versions in .bvmrc.json to reduce the number of downloaded binaries:
{ "binaries": [{ "manifest": "https://bvm.land/deno/1.3.1.json", "version": "^1.3.0" }] }
- Support for file paths everywhere in addition to urls.
- Ability to easily create and remove aliases (ex.
deno2
)- These should be associated with the binary they alias so when you uninstall the binary it deletes the alias.
- Command aliases in the configuration file.
{ "binaries": [{ "manifest": "https://bvm.land/deno/1.3.1.json", "alias": "deno-1.3.1" }] }
- Ability to execute a specific version of an executable one time.
bvm exec deno 1.2.0 -V
or perhaps at the shim leveldeno -V --bvm-use-version 1.2.0
... or maybe this should usebvm resolve
somehow. - Add
bvm lock
to update the configuration file urls with checksums.
Large effort:
- Some way for binaries to specify all their version numbers and the ability to get their latest.
I'm thinking each binary manifest file may have a url to a global binary manifest file where all that data is stored.I think this should be explicit as people will have to trust the source. They could add registry file to their individual CLI tools then install viabvm install [binary name] [version]
or justbvm install [binary name]
. bvm upgrade <binary name>
- Upgrade to the latest version (requires a registry file to be set—not implemented)- Support downstream binary dependencies (should also support a range of dependencies).
Probably unnecessary complexity:
bvm use <url>
- To use a specific version of a binary globally via a url.Something similar toYes. I think there should be another tool people can install with bvm that does this. This tool should be very simple. There should definitely be pre and post install scripts though.npm run <script-name>
? Or is that out of scope?bvm use <binary name> <executable file path>
for using the executable at the specified file path.- Ability to purge any binaries that haven't been run for X days.
- Ability to get a specific version of a binary when using
bvm resolve
(ex.bvm resolve deno 1.3.1
)