SDKMAN

ID

sdkman

Links

Home page · Documentation · Repository

Upstream stars

⭐ 6,859

Last commit

2026-09-27

Version requirement

>= 5

Platforms

🐧 Linux · 🍎 macOS

Operations

installed · outdated · install · upgrade · upgrade_all · remove · sync · cleanup

purl types

pkg:sdkman/

CLI name

sdkman-init.sh

Extra search paths

~/.sdkman/bin

Forced environment

sdkman_auto_answer=true
sdkman_colour_enable=false

Issues and PRs

📦 manager: sdkman

Source

sdkman.py

SDKMAN! manages parallel versions of multiple Software Development Kits on Unix-based systems.

Note

SDKMAN! primarily serves the JVM ecosystem: Java, Gradle, Maven, Kotlin, Scala, and ~115 other candidates. Each candidate is treated as a package.

What mpm adds to sdkman

mpm reaches across every manager at once, not sdkman alone: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover sdkman alongside every other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill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

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

To…

With sdkman

With mpm

List what’s installed

sdk current

mpm --sdkman installed

Install a package

sdk install java 21.0.4-tem

mpm install pkg:sdkman/java

Upgrade one package

sdk upgrade java

mpm --sdkman upgrade java

Upgrade everything

sdk upgrade

mpm --sdkman upgrade --all

Remove a package

sdk uninstall java 21.0.4-tem

mpm remove pkg:sdkman/java

Clear caches

sdk flush

mpm --sdkman cleanup --cache

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outdated

✅

The tool has no read-only outdated verb, so the query pipes n into sdk upgrade to capture the candidate list without applying any upgrade.

orphans

search

install

✅

upgrade

✅

upgrade_all

✅

remove

✅

sync

✅

cleanup

✅

doctor

Configuration

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

  • Ignore it for every run in your configuration:

    [mpm]
    sdkman = false
    
  • Raise the timeout of all sdkman calls:

    [mpm.overrides.sdkman]
    timeout = 900
    
  • Run mpm config-template sdkman to print all overridable settings for your configuration file:

    [mpm.overrides.sdkman]
    cli_names = [
        "sdkman-init.sh",
    ]
    cli_search_path = [
        "~/.sdkman/bin",
    ]
    dry_run = false
    ignore_auto_updates = true
    plan = false
    post_args = []
    pre_args = []
    pre_cmds = []
    requirement = ">=5.0.0"
    stop_on_error = false
    unmaintained = false
    version_cli_options = [
        "version",
    ]
    version_regexes = [
        "script:\\s+(?P<version>\\S+)",
    ]
    
    [mpm.overrides.sdkman.extra_env]
    sdkman_colour_enable = "false"
    sdkman_auto_answer = "true"
    

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

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

  • Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --sdkman 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 SDKMAN’s release-age gating, from the cooldown support table:

Status: ❌ None

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: SDKMAN broker

  • Retraction: Unpublish: the vendor release endpoint “supports POST and DELETE HTTP methods” (vendor API)

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

$ sdk current
Using:
groovy: 4.0.22
java: 21.0.4-tem
scala: 3.4.2

Version check

The version is probed by running:

$ sdkman-init.sh version
SDKMAN!
script: 5.18.2
native: 0.4.6

and extracted with:

r"script:\s+(?P<version>\S+)"

Upstream project

Metrics

sdkman/sdkman-cli

Activity

commit activity open issues open pull requests

Popularity

forks watchers contributors

Metadata

latest tag license main language

Changelog

  • 8.0.0 (2026-09-20)

    • Fix --plan for the operations that query before they act: they reported every package as missing instead of printing the command.

  • 6.4.0 (2026-04-27)

    • Add remove operation. Closes #1775.

  • 6.3.0 (2026-04-09)

    • Add SDKMAN! package manager with installed, outdated, install, upgrade, sync, and cleanup support. Closes #729.