Inro (印籠)

A minimalist, configuration-driven tool for installing and managing your favorite command-line tools.

Inro fetches command-line tools from GitHub Releases and installs them under your home directory. It normally needs no admin rights; on Windows, creating the managed symlinks requires Developer Mode or an elevated shell.

Installation

You can install inro using either method below. Inro can later manage its own updates, but the bootstrap executable must remain outside the configured bin_dir: run inro source update and inro install inro, confirm that bin_dir is on your PATH and the managed binary is being invoked, then delete the bootstrap copy.

From Binaries

If a prebuilt archive is available for your platform on GitHub Releases, extract it and place the inro binary in your PATH. Releases currently provide Linux x86_64, Windows x86_64, and macOS arm64 builds; other Rust-supported targets can be built from source.

From Source

If you have Rust installed, this builds the current main branch using the repository lockfile:

cargo install --locked --git https://github.com/Yangmoooo/inro.git

Quick Start

Inro relies on a registry (source definitions) to know how to install packages.

Initialize/Update Sources

Fetches the default registry (and any custom ones).

inro source update

Search for Packages

Find tools available in the registry.

inro search ripgrep

Install a Tool

Downloads, extracts, and links the binary to your local bin directory.

inro install ripgrep
# Or install a specific version
inro install ripgrep@15.1.0

Manage

inro list                # List installed packages
inro update              # Update all packages
inro use ripgrep 15.0.0  # Switch version
inro uninstall ripgrep   # Remove a package

Move to Another Device

Export the active package versions, copy the file to the new device, initialize its sources, and import the package set:

inro export --output inro-packages.txt
inro source update
inro import inro-packages.txt

Exported package sets contain exact active versions. Retained old versions, unlinked packages, pin state, and local registry files are not included. Copy registry.d/ separately before importing if the package set depends on hand-written definitions. Every non-comment import line must include an exact version in <name>@<version> form. Import still downloads from upstream, so that release and its assets must remain available.

Configuration

Inro keeps everything under a single root directory, $INRO_HOME. It defaults to ~/.inro/ on every platform; set INRO_HOME to relocate. Run inro env to see all resolved paths.

See config.example.toml for the available settings and environment variable overrides.

$INRO_HOME/                      (default: ~/.inro/)
├── config.toml                  user configuration
├── manifest.json                installed packages state
├── registry.d/                  your hand-written registry overrides
│   └── *.toml
├── registry/                    inro-maintained
│   ├── 00-default.toml          fetched by `inro source update`
│   └── auto.toml                auto-detected asset selectors
└── pkgs/                        installed package versions

Anything under registry.d/ is yours to author — its entries take precedence over registry/ on load, so you can override a definition that inro pulled from upstream or learned automatically. Automated source updates never write there. Inro itself changes these files only when you explicitly run source edit; editing them directly remains supported.

Use inro source edit to create or edit registry.d/local.toml, or inro source edit <name> for another hand-written registry file. Edits are staged and only replace the live file after the merged registry validates successfully. Inro uses $VISUAL or $EDITOR when set; the command must wait until editing finishes (for example, code --wait). Without either variable it falls back to vi on Linux/macOS, or edit.exe followed by notepad.exe on Windows.

Upgrading from 0.6.x? Your old installations under ~/.local/share/inro/ and ~/.config/inro/ (or ~/Library/Application Support/inro/ on macOS) are no longer read. See CHANGELOG for the cleanup-and-reinstall path.

Asset Selectors

GitHub packages can define platform-specific asset selectors when automatic asset discovery is ambiguous.

[aria2.remote.github]
repo = "aria2/aria2"

[aria2.remote.github.asset]
"linux-x86_64" = "aria2-*.tar.xz"
"windows-x86_64" = ["aria2", "win", "64bit", "zip"]

• String selectors are minimal glob patterns matched against the full asset name. * matches any number of characters and ? matches one character.
• Array selectors are all-of tokens. Every token must appear in the asset name.
• When inro picks an asset interactively, it caches the choice in $INRO_HOME/registry/auto.toml. If a learned selector no longer matches (e.g. upstream renamed its assets), delete that file and re-run the install/update — inro will re-learn. Automatic asset learning never writes to your files under registry.d/.

Notice

On Windows, inro requires that your account is allowed to create symbolic links. You can grant this permission in one of the following ways:

• Enable Developer Mode in the system settings.
• Run as an admin.

Alternatives

When I started this project, I didn't really look into existing solutions. But so what? I enjoy reinventing the wheel, and it was a great learning opportunity for me.

For a general-purpose binary manager/installer, recommend:

• marcosnils/bin
• zyedidia/eget

For powerful features like environment management and so on, consider:

• jdx/mise
• x-cmd/x-cmd

If you want a balanced middle ground, give inro a try. It's lightweight, focused, and non-intrusive, making it ideal for building a personal toolbox without the overhead.

A huge thanks to these projects—I've learned so much from them.

License

Copyright (c) Yangmoooo. Released under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.