Zsh Antigen

ID

antigen

Links

Documentation · Repository

Upstream stars

⭐ 8,359

Last commit

2026-07-15

Version requirement

>= 2

Platforms

🐧 Linux · 🍎 macOS

Operations

installed · upgrade_all · remove

purl types

pkg:antigen/

CLI name

zsh

Forced environment

NO_COLOR=1
SHELL_SESSIONS_DISABLE=1

Issues and PRs

📦 manager: zsh-based

Source

antigen.py

Antigen is a plugin manager for Zsh.

Bundles are declared in the user’s .zshrc with antigen bundle calls, then cloned under $ADOTDIR. Packages are identified by the short owner/repo name Antigen reports, which is the id mpm keys them on.

Caution

Antigen documents no canonical install path, so a host sourcing it from a nonstandard location leaves the manager unavailable.

What mpm adds to antigen

mpm reaches across every manager at once, not antigen alone: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover antigen alongside every other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill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

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

To…	With antigen	With mpm
List what’s installed	zsh -c 'source ~/antigen.zsh && antigen list --simple'	mpm --antigen installed
Upgrade everything	antigen update	mpm --antigen upgrade --all
Remove a package	antigen purge zsh-users/zsh-completions --force	mpm remove pkg:antigen/zsh-users/zsh-completions

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outdated	❌	Antigen compares nothing against its remotes short of performing the update; upgrade --all still works.
orphans
search
install	❌	A bundle is loaded for the current shell only, and installing one for real means editing the user’s .zshrc, which mpm does not own.
upgrade
upgrade_all	✅
remove	✅
sync
cleanup
doctor

Configuration

• Ignore antigen on the mpm CLI by passing the --no-antigen option.

• Ignore it for every run in your configuration:

  [mpm]
  antigen = false
  

• Raise the timeout of all antigen calls:

  [mpm.overrides.antigen]
  timeout = 900
  

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

  [mpm.overrides.antigen]
  cli_names = [
      "zsh",
  ]
  cli_search_path = []
  dry_run = false
  ignore_auto_updates = true
  plan = false
  post_args = []
  pre_args = []
  pre_cmds = []
  requirement = ">=2.0.0"
  stop_on_error = false
  unmaintained = false
  version_cli_options = [
      "version",
  ]
  version_regexes = [
      "Antigen\\s+v?(?P<version>\\S+)",
  ]
  
  [mpm.overrides.antigen.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 antigen 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 antigen, one mpm command each:

• Snapshot and clone a machine: mpm --antigen dump antigen.toml, then mpm restore antigen.toml on the next one.

• Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --antigen 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 Zsh Antigen’s release-age gating, from the cooldown support table:

Status: ❌ None (clones a Git branch or tag, no release feed)

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 Zsh Antigen well and a transcript below looks wrong, or a newer release changed its output format, report it.

$ zsh -c 'source ~/antigen.zsh && antigen list --simple'
zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting
zsh-users/zsh-completions
zsh-users/zsh-history-substring-search

Version check

The version is probed by running:

$ zsh version
Antigen v2.2.3 (0554db1)
Revision date: 2026-07-14 16:52:45 +0100

and extracted with:

r"Antigen\s+v?(?P<version>\S+)"

Upstream project

Metrics	zsh-users/antigen
Activity
Popularity
Metadata

Changelog

• 8.0.0 (2026-09-20)

  • Add the Antigen Zsh plugin manager with installed, upgrade and remove support. It declares no install: antigen bundle loads a bundle for the current shell only.