A Step-by-Step Guide To Create Homebrew Taps From GitHub Repos

Make your first Homebrew tap

A ruby file for Homebrew tap. Image by Author.

Updated: 2023 Oct 22

Introduction

Homebrew is the missing package manager for macOS. It installs packages with a simple command like brew install curl. Homebrew taps are third-party repositories. By creating a Homebrew tap formula, users can install and use your repo.

In this article, you will learn how to create a simple Homebrew tap. I used my gitstart for this article. Gitstart is a bash script to create a Git repo. It contains only one file.

Step 1: Git Tag

You need to add a Git tag to your repo:

$ git tag -a v0.0.2 -m "version 0.2.0"

Push your tag to the remote repo:

$ git push origin v0.2.0

Step 2. Create a New Release

On your GitHub repo, click Create a new release.

In the Tag version, select the latest version and write the description of the release.

Creating a release. Image by Author.

Step 3. Run Brew Create

Find the source code (tar.gz) and copy the link address:

Copy Link Address from Source code (tar.gz). Image by Author.

Run brew create your-link and replace your-link with your copied link.

For example:

$ brew create --tap shinokada/gitstart https://github.com/shinokada/gitstart/archive/refs/tags/0.2.0.tar.gz

It will show the content of the created file.

The output after running the brew create command. Image by Author.

If your default editor is VIM, quit the program by using :q.