Fish fisher¶

ID: fisher
Link: Repository
Upstream stars: ⭐ 9,431
Last commit: 2026-01-25
Version requirement: >= 4
Platforms: 🐧 Linux · 🍎 macOS
Operations: installed · install · upgrade · upgrade_all · remove
purl types: pkg:fisher/
CLI name: fish
Forced environment: NO_COLOR=1
Issues and PRs: 📦 manager: fish-based
Source: fisher.py

Fisher is a plugin manager for the Fish shell.

Fisher clones each plugin from GitHub or any other forge into $fisher_path, and records the set in the user’s fish_plugins file. Plugins are identified by the lower-cased owner/repo slug Fisher both reports and accepts, which is the id mpm keys them on. A plugin may carry an @ref suffix pinning it to a Git tag or branch, and that suffix is what mpm surfaces as the installed version.

What `mpm` adds to `fisher`¶

mpm reaches across every manager at once, not fisher alone: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover fisher alongside every other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill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

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

To…	With `fisher`	With `mpm`
List what’s installed	`fish -c 'fisher list'`	`mpm --fisher installed`
Install a package	`fish -c 'fisher install ilancosman/tide@v5'`	`mpm install pkg:fisher/ilancosman/tide@v5`
Upgrade one package	`fish -c 'fisher update jorgebucaran/nvm.fish'`	`mpm --fisher upgrade jorgebucaran/nvm.fish`
Upgrade everything	`fish -c 'fisher update'`	`mpm --fisher upgrade --all`
Remove a package	`fish -c 'fisher remove jorgebucaran/nvm.fish'`	`mpm remove pkg:fisher/jorgebucaran/nvm.fish`

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`outdated`	❌	Fisher tracks a branch rather than a release, so “behind” is not a question it answers; `upgrade --all` still works.
`orphans`
`search`	❌	Fisher resolves plugins straight from forge URLs and indexes no registry to search.
`install`	✅
`upgrade`	✅
`upgrade_all`	✅
`remove`	✅
`sync`
`cleanup`
`doctor`

Configuration¶

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

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

[mpm.overrides.fisher]
cli_names = [
    "fish",
]
cli_search_path = []
dry_run = false
ignore_auto_updates = true
plan = false
post_args = []
pre_args = []
pre_cmds = []
requirement = ">=4.0.0"
stop_on_error = false
unmaintained = false
version_cli_options = [
    "--version",
]
version_regexes = [
    "fisher, version (?P<version>\\S+)",
]

[mpm.overrides.fisher.extra_env]
NO_COLOR = "1"

The arguments and environment variables listed in the box atop this page are forced on every fisher 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 fisher, one mpm command each:

Snapshot and clone a machine: mpm --fisher dump fisher.toml, then mpm restore fisher.toml on the next one.
Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --fisher 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 Fish fisher’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 Fish fisher well and a transcript below looks wrong, or a newer release changed its output format, report it.

$ fish -c 'fisher list'
jorgebucaran/fisher
ilancosman/tide@v5
jorgebucaran/nvm.fish

Version check¶

The version is probed by running:

$ fish --version
fisher, version 4.4.8

and extracted with:

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

Upstream project¶

Metrics	`jorgebucaran/fisher`
Activity
Popularity
Metadata

Changelog¶

8.0.0 (2026-09-20)
- Add the Fisher Fish plugin manager with installed, install, upgrade and remove support, executed through Fish since Fisher ships as an autoloaded shell function.