Chromebrew¶

ID: chromebrew
Links: Home page · Documentation · Repository
Upstream stars: ⭐ 2,521
Last commit: 2026-09-29
Platforms: 🐧 Linux (ChromeOS only)
Operations: installed · search · install · upgrade · upgrade_all · remove · sync
purl types: pkg:chromebrew/
CLI name: crew
Issues and PRs: 📦 manager: chromebrew
Source: chromebrew.toml

Chromebrew is the package manager for ChromeOS, installing into /usr/local as the regular user.

Parsing notes, verified against the chromebrew master source (bin/crew, commands/list.rb, commands/search.rb, lib/const.rb):

crew must NOT run as root: bin/crew hard-aborts when Process.uid is zero, so no operation is marked sudo.
Output is colorized through HighLine (.lightgreen and friends) and crew does not honor the NO_COLOR environment variable: every operation passes its --no-color flag, which sits after the subcommand in crew’s docopt grammar.
crew list installed is name-only; the --verbose form adds the version column but injects a “Package”/“Version” header row and a “=======” separator. The installed regex requires a digit-led version so both decorations fall through.
No outdated: crew list states are available/compatible/incompatible/ essential/installed only, and crew upgrade computes AND applies upgrades, so there is no non-mutating upgradable listing. No cleanup either: CREW_DOCOPT has no clean verb.

What `mpm` adds to `chromebrew`¶

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Bigger still, mpm reaches across every manager at once: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover chromebrew alongside every other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one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

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

To…	With `chromebrew`	With `mpm`
List what’s installed	`crew list --verbose --no-color installed`	`mpm --chromebrew installed`
Search for a package	`crew search --no-color <query>`	`mpm --chromebrew search <query>`
Install a package	`crew install --no-color <package_id>`	`mpm install pkg:chromebrew/<package_id>`
Upgrade one package	`crew upgrade --no-color <package_id>`	`mpm --chromebrew upgrade <package_id>`
Upgrade everything	`crew upgrade --no-color`	`mpm --chromebrew upgrade --all`
Remove a package	`crew remove --no-color <package_id>`	`mpm remove pkg:chromebrew/<package_id>`

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`	✅
`remove`	✅
`sync`	✅
`cleanup`
`doctor`

Configuration¶

Ignore chromebrew on the mpm CLI by passing the --no-chromebrew option.
Ignore it for every run in your configuration:
```
[mpm]
chromebrew = false
```

Raise the timeout of all chromebrew calls:

[mpm.overrides.chromebrew]
timeout = 900

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

[mpm.overrides.chromebrew]
cli_names = [
    "crew",
]
cli_search_path = []
dry_run = false
ignore_auto_updates = true
plan = false
post_args = []
pre_args = []
pre_cmds = []
stop_on_error = false
unmaintained = false
version_cli_options = [
    "version",
]
version_regexes = [
    "^(?P<version>[\\d.]+)$",
]

Recipes¶

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

Snapshot and clone a machine: mpm --chromebrew dump chromebrew.toml, then mpm restore chromebrew.toml on the next one.
Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --chromebrew 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 Chromebrew’s release-age gating, from the cooldown support table:

Status: ❌ None (Chrome OS)

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: Git-manifest indexes
Retraction: Index revert: reverting the manifest, Portfile or derivation commit withdraws the version
Publish date: ❌ only the commit date, which is client-set and trivially backdated. A date declared in the manifest, like winget’s optional ReleaseDate, is author-supplied too and no sounder

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 bundled definition. If you know Chromebrew well and a transcript below looks wrong, or a newer release changed its output format, report it.

$ crew list --verbose --no-color installed
Package        Version
=======
less           643
nano           8.2

$ crew search --no-color {query}
less: GNU less is a paginator
lesspipe: Filters for less

Version check¶

The version is probed by running:

$ crew version
1.75.0

and extracted with:

r"^(?P<version>[\d.]+)$"

Upstream project¶

Metrics	`chromebrew/chromebrew`
Activity
Popularity
Metadata

Changelog¶

7.2.0 (2026-07-09)
- Add Chromebrew (crew) package manager with installed, search, install, upgrade, remove and sync support on ChromeOS; a bundled configuration-defined manager.