Install

You can then easily install all of the dependencies with:

brew bundle

If a dependency is already installed and there is an upgrade available it will be upgraded.

brew bundle will look for Brewfile in the current directory. Use --file to specify a path to a different Brewfile, or set the HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_FILE environment variable, with --file taking precedence if both are provided.

You can skip the installation of dependencies by adding space-separated values to one or more of the following environment variables:

• HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_BREW_SKIP
• HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_CASK_SKIP
• HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_MAS_SKIP
• HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_TAP_SKIP

brew bundle will output a Brewfile.lock.json in the same directory as the Brewfile if all dependencies are installed successfully. This contains dependency and system status information which can be useful in debugging brew bundle failures and replicating a "last known good build" state.

You can opt-out of this behaviour by setting the HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_NO_LOCK environment variable or passing the --no-lock option.

You may wish to check this file into the same version control system as your Brewfile (or ensure your version control system ignores it if you'd prefer to rely on debugging information from a local machine).

Dump

You can create a Brewfile from all the existing Homebrew packages you have installed with:

brew bundle dump

The --force option will allow an existing Brewfile to be overwritten as well. The --describe option will output a description comment above each line. The --no-restart option will prevent restart_service from being added to brew lines with running services.

Cleanup

You can also use Brewfile to list the only packages that should be installed, removing any package not present or dependent. This workflow is useful for maintainers or testers who regularly install lots of formulae. To uninstall all Homebrew formulae not listed in Brewfile:

brew bundle cleanup

Unless the --force option is passed, formulae that would be uninstalled will be listed rather than actually be uninstalled.

Check

You can check there's anything to install/upgrade in the Brewfile by running:

brew bundle check

This provides a successful exit code if everything is up-to-date so is useful for scripting.

For a list of dependencies that are missing, pass --verbose. This will also check all dependencies by not exiting on the first missing dependency category.

List

Outputs a list of all of the entries in the Brewfile.

brew bundle list

Pass one of --casks, --taps, --mas, or --brews to limit output to that type. Defaults to --brews. Pass --all to see everything.

Note that the type of the package is not included in this output.

Exec

Runs an external command within Homebrew's superenv build environment:

brew bundle exec -- bundle install

This sanitized build environment ignores unrequested dependencies, which makes sure that things you didn't specify in your Brewfile won't get picked up by commands like bundle install, npm install, etc. It will also add compiler flags which will help find keg-only dependencies like openssl, icu4c, etc.

Restarting services

You can choose whether brew bundle restarts a service every time it's run, or only when the formula is installed or upgraded in your Brewfile:

# Always restart myservice
brew 'myservice', restart_service: true

# Only restart when installing or upgrading myservice
brew 'myservice', restart_service: :changed