zerobrew¶

ID: zerobrew
Home page: https://github.com/lucasgelfond/zerobrew
Version requirement: >= 0.3
Platforms: 🐧 Linux · 🍎 macOS
Operations: installed · outdated · install · upgrade · upgrade_all · remove
purl types: pkg:zerobrew
CLI name: zb
Extra search paths: /opt/zerobrew/bin
Forced environment: NO_COLOR=1
Issues and PRs: 📦 manager: homebrew
Source: meta_package_manager/managers/zerobrew.toml

ZeroBrew is a fast, Homebrew-compatible package manager written in Rust, reusing Homebrew’s formula ecosystem but storing packages in a content-addressable store at /opt/zerobrew.

ZeroBrew has no search command: use brew search or browse the Homebrew formula repository instead.

The >=0.3.0 floor is where zb upgrade landed; zb outdated and its --json output shipped earlier, in 0.2.0.

What `mpm` adds to `zerobrew`¶

mpm reaches across every manager at once, not zerobrew alone: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover zerobrew alongside every other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill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

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

To…	With `zerobrew`	With `mpm`
List what’s installed	`zb list`	`mpm --zerobrew installed`
List outdated packages	`zb outdated --json`	`mpm --zerobrew outdated`
Install a package	`zb install <package_id>`	`mpm install pkg:zerobrew/<package_id>`
Upgrade one package	`zb upgrade <package_id>`	`mpm --zerobrew upgrade <package_id>`
Upgrade everything	`zb upgrade`	`mpm --zerobrew upgrade --all`
Remove a package	`zb uninstall <package_id>`	`mpm remove pkg:zerobrew/<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
`installed`	✓
`outdated`	✓
`orphans`
`search`
`install`	✓
`upgrade`	✓
`upgrade_all`	✓
`remove`	✓
`sync`
`cleanup`
`doctor`

Selecting and configuring `zerobrew`¶

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

[mpm]
zerobrew = false

The arguments and environment variables listed in the box atop this page are forced on every zerobrew call, so runs stay quiet, non-interactive and reproducible: the defaults you would set in CI anyway.

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

[mpm.managers.zerobrew]
timeout = 900

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

Recipes¶

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

Snapshot and clone a machine: mpm --zerobrew dump zerobrew.toml, then mpm restore zerobrew.toml on the next one.
Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --zerobrew 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 needs root.

See privilege escalation for the full policy.

Cooldown¶

State of zerobrew’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: 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

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:

$ zb --version
zb 0.3.0

and extracted with:

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

Reference traces¶

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

$ zb list
jq 1.7.1
wget 1.24.5

$ zb outdated --json
[
  {
    "name": "jq",
    "installed_versions": [
      "1.7.1"
    ],
    "current_version": "1.7.2"
  }
]

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 --zerobrew installed --output json, or csv, toml, yaml), each package carrying a purl and a version comparable across managers.

Changelog¶

7.3.0 (2026-07-17)
- Convert from a Python class to a bundled configuration definition, its installed-versions array read through the new [N] field selector, with no functional change.
6.6.0 (2026-06-17)
- Add upgrade and upgrade_all support via zb upgrade, and bump minimum zb from 0.2.0 to 0.3.0.
6.3.0 (2026-04-09)
- Add ZeroBrew manager with installed, outdated, install, and remove support. Closes #1681.