bvm - Binary Version Manager

A version manager for all binaries.

NOTICE: This is a proof of concept and currently has no automated tests—extremely unstable. It is not recommended to use it yet as there will likely be many breaking changes.

Goals

1. Seamless version selection based on current working directory.
2. Replace binary specific version manager tools.
3. No centralization—all urls and paths.
   • Allows for easily distributing approved binaries within an organization.
   • Easy for binary authors to distribute their applications.
4. Support completely different application binaries with the same command name.
5. Backwards compatibility loading project configuration files (once hitting 1.0)
6. Works on Windows without needing WSL.
7. Allows working with binaries already on the path (ex. bvm use deno path).

Setup

1. For now, install bvm via cargo—cargo install bvm.
2. Manually add the binary folder as the first item on the path:
   • Windows: C:\Users\<user-name>\AppData\Local\bvm\bvm\bin
   • Mac/Linux: ~/.local/share/bvm/bin
3. Add a .bvmrc.json file to your project and specify the paths to the binary manifest files. jsonc { "binaries": [ // these don't exist at the moment... "https://bvm.land/deno/1.3.1.json", "https://bvm.land/dprint/0.9.0.json" ] }
4. Run bvm install

Commands

bvm install

Downloads & installs the binaries in the current configuration file and associates them on the path with bvm.

bvm install <url>

Installs a binary at the specified manifest file.

```

Example (this url currently doesn't exist)

bvm install https://bvm.land/deno/1.3.1.json ```

bvm use [binary-name or group-name/binary-name] [version]

Uses the specified binary name and version globally.

The binary and version must have been previously installed.

```

Examples

bvm use deno 1.3.1 bvm use denoland/deno 1.3.1 bvm use name-stealer/deno 2.0.0 ```

bvm resolve [binary name]

Resolves the executable path of the specified binary based on the current working directory.

This command is used by the created shell/batch files (shims) to tell how to resolve the file.

```

Example

bvm resolve deno

on windows, outputs: C:\Users\\AppData\Local\bvm\bvm\plugins\denoland\deno\1.3.1\deno.exe

```

bvm uninstall [binary-name or group-name/binary-name] [version]

Uninstalls the specified binary name and version.

```

Examples

bvm uninstall deno 1.2.0 bvm uninstall denoland/deno 1.3.1 bvm uninstall name-stealer/deno 2.0.0 ```

Binary manifest file

At the moment, it looks like this:

json { "schemaVersion": 1, "name": "deno", "group": "denoland", "version": "1.3.1", "windows": { "archive": "https://github.com/denoland/deno/releases/download/v1.3.1/deno-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip", "binaryPath": "deno.exe", "postExtract": "# this is the post extract script where you can run some commands if necessary to cause additional setup" }, "linux": { "archive": "https://github.com/denoland/deno/releases/download/v1.3.1/deno-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.zip", "binaryPath": "deno" }, "mac": { "archive": "https://github.com/denoland/deno/releases/download/v1.3.1/deno-x86_64-apple-darwin.zip", "binaryPath": "deno" } }

Future improvements

High priority:

1. Checksums on paths to ensure downstream binaries stay constant.

Low effort:

1. bvm list - Lists the installed binaries.
2. bvm clear-url-cache - Clear the url caches, but not the binary caches.
3. Ability to get a specific version of a binary when using bvm resolve (ex. bvm resolve deno 1.3.1)
4. Ability to specify pre & post install commands in the configuration file.
5. Require --force on bvm install <url> if already installed.
6. Command aliases in the configuration file. jsonc { "binaries": [{ "manifest": "http://localhost:8000/deno-1.3.1.json", "alias": "deno-1.3.1" }] }

Medium effort:

1. Ability to specify a range of supported versions in .bvmrc.json to reduce the number of downloaded binaries: jsonc { "binaries": [{ "manifest": "http://localhost:8000/deno-1.3.1.json", "version": "^1.3.0" }] }
2. Support for file paths everywhere in addition to urls.
3. Ability to easily create and remove aliases (ex. deno2)
   • These should be associated with the binary they alias so when you uninstall the binary it deletes the alias.
4. Ability to execute a specific version of an executable one time. bvm exec deno 1.2.0 -V or perhaps at the shim level deno -V --bvm-use-version 1.2.0... or maybe this should use bvm resolve somehow.

Large effort:

1. Some way for binaries to specify all their version numbers and the ability to get their latest. ~~I'm thinking each binary manifest file may have a url to a global binary manifest file where all that data is stored.~~ I think this should be explicit as people will have to trust the source. They could add "binary list" files to their individual CLI tools then install via bvm install [binary name] [version] or just bvm install [binary name].
2. bvm upgrade <binary name> - Upgrade to the latest version (requires a "binary list" to be set—not implemented)
3. Support downstream binary dependencies (should also support a range of dependencies).

Probably unnecessary complexity:

1. bvm use <url> - To use a specific version of a binary globally via a url.
2. ~~Something similar to npm run <script-name>? Or is that out of scope?~~ Yes. I think there should be another tool people can install with bvm that does this. This tool should be very simple. There should definitely be pre and post install scripts though.
3. bvm use <binary name> <executable file path> for using the executable at the specified file path.
4. Ability to purge any binaries that haven't been run for X days.