Antidote¶

ID: antidote
Links: Home page · Documentation · Repository
Upstream stars: ⭐ 1,790
Last commit: 2026-09-16
Version requirement: >= 2.2
Platforms: 🐧 Linux · 🍎 macOS
Operations: installed · outdated · install · upgrade_all · remove
purl types: pkg:antidote/
CLI name: zsh
Forced environment: NO_COLOR=1
SHELL_SESSIONS_DISABLE=1
Issues and PRs: 📦 manager: zsh-based
Source: antidote.py

Antidote is a Zsh plugin manager, successor to antibody.

Antidote clones each bundle from GitHub or any other forge into $ANTIDOTE_HOME, and records it in the user’s .zsh_plugins.txt file. Packages are identified by the user/repo slug Antidote both reports and accepts, which is the id mpm keys them on.

What `mpm` adds to `antidote`¶

mpm reaches across every manager at once, not antidote alone: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover antidote alongside every other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill of materials.

Every mpm command also gains --dry-run and --plan previews, cross-scheme version comparison and purl identifiers. See manager augmentations for how each one is built.

Your `antidote` commands, in `mpm`¶

You already know antidote: each operation maps one-to-one onto mpm, in an interface shared by every manager.

To…	With `antidote`	With `mpm`
List what’s installed	`zsh -c 'source ~/.antidote/antidote.zsh && antidote list --jsonl'`	`mpm --antidote installed`
List outdated packages	`zsh -c 'source ~/.antidote/antidote.zsh && antidote update --dry-run'`	`mpm --antidote outdated`
Install a package	`antidote install rupa/z`	`mpm install pkg:antidote/rupa/z`
Upgrade everything	`antidote update --bundles`	`mpm --antidote upgrade --all`
Remove a package	`antidote purge rupa/z`	`mpm remove pkg:antidote/rupa/z`

Prefix any command above with --dry-run to simulate the underlying manager calls without touching the system: the safe way to watch what mpm would do before trusting it.

Operations¶

Operation	Supported	Notes
`installed`	✅
`outdated`	✅
`orphans`
`search`	❌	Antidote resolves bundles straight from forge URLs and indexes no registry to search.
`install`	✅
`upgrade`	❌	The `antidote update` command takes no bundle argument, only `--self` and `--bundles` scope flags; `upgrade --all` still works.
`upgrade_all`	✅
`remove`	✅
`sync`
`cleanup`
`doctor`

Configuration¶

Ignore antidote on the mpm CLI by passing the --no-antidote option.
Ignore it for every run in your configuration:
```
[mpm]
antidote = false
```
Raise the timeout of all antidote calls:
```
[mpm.overrides.antidote]
timeout = 900
```

Run mpm config-template antidote to print all overridable settings for your configuration file:

[mpm.overrides.antidote]
cli_names = [
    "zsh",
]
cli_search_path = []
dry_run = false
ignore_auto_updates = true
plan = false
post_args = []
pre_args = []
pre_cmds = []
requirement = ">=2.2.0"
stop_on_error = false
unmaintained = false
version_cli_options = [
    "--version",
]
version_regexes = [
    "antidote version (?P<version>\\S+)",
]

[mpm.overrides.antidote.extra_env]
NO_COLOR = "1"
SHELL_SESSIONS_DISABLE = "1"

The arguments and environment variables listed in the box atop this page are forced on every antidote call, so runs stay quiet, non-interactive and reproducible: the defaults you would set in CI anyway.

Recipes¶

A few jobs you would otherwise script around antidote, one mpm command each:

Snapshot and clone a machine: mpm --antidote dump antidote.toml, then mpm restore antidote.toml on the next one.
Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --antidote sbom (CycloneDX by default, --spdx for SPDX).

Privilege escalation¶

mpm runs this manager as the current user and never prepends sudo by default. Flip the policy for its privileged operations with --sudo or the per-manager sudo override.

None of its operations is privileged.

See privilege escalation for the full policy.

Cooldown¶

State of Antidote’s release-age gating, from the cooldown support table:

Status: 🔜 Shipped upstream (since 2.2.0)
Mechanism: zstyle ':antidote:bundle:*' min-age <days>, whole days, no environment variable
Reference: antidote CHANGELOG

A cooldown only pays off where a compromised release can be withdrawn while the clock runs, and can only be emulated where the registry dates its releases. From the retraction table:

Registry: Upstream Git clones
Retraction: None: a plugin is cloned straight from its upstream repository, so withdrawing a bad revision is its author force-pushing, retagging or deleting it themselves. No index sits in between
Publish date: ❌ a commit or tag date is set by the author and freely rewritable

With --cooldown set, mpm skips this manager’s install and upgrade operations rather than run them unguarded (fail-closed); --cooldown best-effort opts back in.

Reference traces¶

A collection of raw native outputs captured from the manager’s own CLI and recorded in the manager source. If you know Antidote well and a transcript below looks wrong, or a newer release changed its output format, report it.

$ zsh -c 'source ~/.antidote/antidote.zsh && antidote list --jsonl'
{"url":"https://github.com/rupa/z","repo":"rupa/z","path":"/home/kev/.cache/antidote/github.com/rupa/z","sha":"d37a763a6a30e1b32766fecc3b8ffd6127f8a0fd"}
{"url":"https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-completions","repo":"zsh-users/zsh-completions","path":"/home/kev/.cache/antidote/github.com/zsh-users/zsh-completions","sha":"729a2408fb129bcda7e8a21ae7bf349fe295b634"}

$ zsh -c 'source ~/.antidote/antidote.zsh && antidote update --dry-run'
Checking for bundle updates (dry run)...
antidote: checking for updates: rupa/z
antidote: checking for updates: zsh-users/zsh-completions
Waiting for bundle updates to complete...

Bundle rupa/z update check complete.
antidote: update available: rupa/z b82ac78 -> d37a763
d37a763 Escape calls for sed and awk in case someone aliased them (#264)
703bb54 avoid issues when `date` has been aliased
6ba0722 avoid issues when `env` has been aliased

Dry run complete. No changes were made.

antidote: skipping self-update (dry run)

Version check¶

The version is probed by running:

$ zsh --version
antidote version 2.3.0 (9bb69ab)

and extracted with:

r"antidote version (?P<version>\S+)"

Upstream project¶

Metrics	`mattmc3/antidote`
Activity
Popularity
Metadata

Changelog¶

8.0.0 (2026-09-20)
- Add the Antidote Zsh plugin manager with installed, outdated, install, upgrade and remove support, executed through Zsh since Antidote ships as a sourced shell function.