asdf

ID

asdf

Home page

https://asdf-vm.com

Version requirement

>= 0.16

Platforms

🐧 Linux · 🍎 macOS

Operations

installed · outdated · search · install · upgrade · upgrade_all · remove · sync

purl types

pkg:asdf

CLI name

asdf

Issues and PRs

📦 manager: asdf-based

Source

meta_package_manager/managers/asdf.py

asdf manages parallel versions of multiple developer tools (Node.js, Ruby, Python, Erlang, …) through a plugin ecosystem, exposing all of them behind a single CLI.

mpm targets the 0.16.0 Go rewrite and later: it calls the space-separated subcommands (asdf list all, asdf plugin add) that replaced the hyphenated forms (list-all, plugin-add) of the older Bash asdf, which is unsupported.

Note

asdf is plugin-driven: every tool the user can install is gated behind a plugin (asdf plugin add nodejs). mpm install does not auto-add plugins; the user is expected to register them first with asdf plugin add.

Note

Each (plugin, installed_version) pair is reported as a distinct package, so a tool installed at multiple versions yields multiple entries sharing the same ID.

Caution

mpm outdated only reports tools that have a currently-active version (marked with * in asdf list) different from their latest stable release. A tool installed without being activated through a .tool-versions file does not surface as outdated.

What mpm adds to asdf

Through mpm, asdf gains:

  • a one-command upgrade --all that refreshes every outdated package in a single run

  • --exact and --extended search, to narrow to exact names or match descriptions

Bigger still, mpm reaches across every manager at once: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover asdf alongside every other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill of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 asdf commands, in mpm

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

To…

With asdf

With mpm

List what’s installed

asdf list

mpm --asdf installed

List outdated packages

asdf latest --all

mpm --asdf outdated

Search for a package

asdf plugin list all

mpm --asdf search all

Install a package

asdf install nodejs 20.10.0

mpm install pkg:asdf/nodejs

Upgrade one package

asdf install nodejs latest

mpm --asdf upgrade latest

Upgrade everything

—

mpm --asdf upgrade --all

Remove a package

asdf plugin remove nodejs

mpm remove pkg:asdf/nodejs

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

✓

exact and extended search backfilled by mpm

install

✓

upgrade

✓

upgrade_all

✓

backfilled by mpm

remove

✓

sync

✓

cleanup

doctor

Selecting and configuring asdf

Deselect asdf for a single run with --no-asdf, or persist the choice in your configuration:

[mpm]
asdf = false

Keep it enabled but tune how mpm drives it with a per-manager override:

[mpm.managers.asdf]
timeout = 900

mpm config-template asdf prints every overridable attribute as a ready-to-paste block.

Recipes

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

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

  • Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --asdf 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.

See privilege escalation for the full policy.

Cooldown

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

Status: ❌ None (runtime version manager)

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: GitHub release assets

  • Retraction: None: withdrawing a build is the upstream author deleting their own release or tag. Nothing sits between them and the user

  • Publish date: ✅ server-set published_at on each release (REST API)

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

Version probe

The version is probed by running:

$ asdf version
v0.19.0-83adfe6

and extracted with:

r"v?(?P<version>\d+\.\d+\.\d+)"

Reference traces

Raw native outputs captured in the manager source: the reference mpm’s parsers were written against. If you know asdf well and a transcript below looks wrong, or a newer release changed its output format, report it.

$ asdf list
nodejs
  18.20.4
 *20.10.0
ruby
 *3.2.0

$ asdf latest --all
nodejs    20.10.0    missing
ruby      3.3.0      missing

Feed any of these through mpm and the raw output becomes one uniform table, the same shape for every manager: filter it, project columns, or export it (mpm --asdf installed --output json, or csv, toml, yaml), each package carrying a purl and a version comparable across managers.

Changelog

  • 6.6.0 (2026-06-17)

    • Add asdf package manager (installed, outdated, search, install, upgrade, upgrade_all, remove, sync) on Linux and macOS; requires asdf >=0.16.0.