Homebrew 5.1.0 has been released. Homebrew’s most significant changes since 5.0.0 are expanded brew bundle support, brew version-install, new -full formula handling and installer updates.

Major changes and deprecations since 5.0.0:

• brew bundle manages Rust Cargo packages from Brewfiles, uv tools and Flatpak remotes or apps.
• brew bundle fetches downloads in parallel before install, auto-taps formulae and casks from external taps, uses mas get for better fresh Apple ID handling, sets HOMEBREW_INSIDE_BUNDLE and adds --no-secrets for safer environment inspection.
• brew version-install creates, extracts and installs older formula versions in one step.
• Homebrew publishes an unversioned Homebrew.pkg installer URL and uses Portable Ruby 4.0.1 with Ruby 4.0.
• Homebrew adds ffmpeg-full, imagemagick-full, automatic linking for versioned or -full keg-only formulae when the unversioned sibling is absent and stricter rejection of dependencies on *-full formulae.
• Homebrew deprecates Formula#needs and needs :openmp, option :cxx11 and option :universal and other APIs scheduled for the normal release-cycle removals.

Upcoming changes:

• Homebrew plans the Ubuntu 24.04 CI migration for 5.2.0, which is expected to raise the Linux baseline to glibc 2.39 and libstdc++ 6.0.33.
• Homebrew continues the master to main migration introduced in 4.6.0; some repositories stop updating master in 5.1.0 and the remaining compatibility branches are scheduled for removal in 5.2.0 in favour of main.

Homebrew’s other changes since 5.0.0 worth highlighting are the following:

• brew services supports nice priorities for services.
• brew services sets ThrottleInterval for LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons on macOS.
• brew sh --ruby opens a shell with Homebrew’s bundled Ruby and Bundler preconfigured.
• brew shellenv uses simpler shell detection and is easier to override when auto-detection is wrong.
• brew lgtm is recommended in the PR template before submitting changes and brew lgtm --online covers checks that need network access.
• brew --taps prints Homebrew’s taps directory.
• brew source jumps straight to a formula’s source repository.
• brew tap-info exits with a failure status for unknown taps, which makes scripting more reliable.
• brew edit auto-taps Homebrew/core or Homebrew/cask when API-known formulae or casks are edited on tapless installs.
• brew config on macOS reports the detected Metal toolchain version.
• brew info marks installed and uninstalled formulae or casks more clearly.
• brew search labels deprecated and disabled formulae and casks directly in search results.
• brew outdated respects HOMEBREW_UPGRADE_GREEDY_CASKS.
• brew doctor warns early when Linux glibc is older than the upcoming CI baseline.
• brew uninstall refuses to uninstall casks that other installed casks depend on and keeps going when one requested formula or cask fails.
• brew upgrade and brew reinstall keep working through individual name-resolution failures instead of stopping early.
• Homebrew requires AI-assistance disclosure in PRs, documents preferred AI and LLM usage in contributions and ships a CLAUDE.md guide alongside AGENTS.md.
• Homebrew GitHub Actions include cache-homebrew-prefix for prefix caching in CI..
• Homebrew GitHub Actions include setup-ruby for Ruby setup through Homebrew in CI.
• Homebrew preserves WSL_DISTRO_NAME, which keeps CLI tools launched from WSL behaving correctly.
• Homebrew shows a progress bar for concurrent downloads.
• Homebrew audits better distinguish true self-submissions from other new-formula submissions.
• Homebrew allows dashes anywhere in tap names, not just after the homebrew- prefix.
• Homebrew auto-bumps resources within formulae that have explicit livecheck blocks.
• Homebrew points issue reporters to GitHub Discussions sooner when issues are not the best fit and updates contributor guidance on when to open discussions, PRs and issues.
• Homebrew checks SSSE3 support more clearly on Linux x86_64 when Homebrew requires it.
• Homebrew falls back to simpler output on dumb terminals, which avoids garbled progress display in shells such as Emacs.
• Homebrew keeps custom HOMEBREW_CURLRC paths through brew update.
• Homebrew points unsupported older macOS releases to MacPorts instead of unsupported Homebrew installs.
• Homebrew removes legacy migration code for the old linuxbrew repository, removes the remaining automatic migration logic for old linuxbrew-core formulae and removes more obsolete linuxbrew-core migration entries.
• Homebrew uses the correct Portable Ruby URLs for custom HOMEBREW_ARTIFACT_DOMAIN mirrors and uses the correct mirror links when building brew mirror URLs.
• Homebrew guides contributors toward the modern command API as more legacy CLI parser fallback paths are removed.
• Homebrew contributor guidance tells LLM-assisted contributors to run the repository’s own ./bin/brew so local checks match CI more closely.
• Homebrew reuses cached API data for up to 7 days in more places, reducing needless refreshes.
• Homebrew lets old installed casks that still contain removed DSL such as appcast uninstall or upgrade again and filters broken Caskroom metadata out of installed-cask listings.
• Homebrew closes cleanup lockfiles properly, avoiding a file descriptor leak.
• Homebrew caching-proxy docs cover the Formulae API as well as bottles.
• Homebrew cask acceptance docs explain the notability bar for self-submitted casks more clearly and state that dropping support for current macOS versions can lead to rejection.
• Homebrew support-tier docs state that outdated macOS developer tools count as Tier 2 and brew doctor uses clearer wording about when to report issues from Tier 2 configurations.
• Homebrew formulae can use simpler shell-completion helpers, including a predefined :cobra format and a built-in :typer format.
• Homebrew audits revision and compatibility_version changes more strictly, which helps catch ABI mistakes earlier.
• Homebrew linkage checks fail indirect linkage problems more consistently, which helps catch broken dependencies earlier.
• Homebrew std_npm_args disables package scripts by default, reducing exposure to malicious npm install hooks.
• Homebrew container registry users can omit the Docker authentication header by setting HOMEBREW_DOCKER_REGISTRY_BASIC_AUTH_TOKEN=none.

Finally:

• Homebrew simplified its governance model, cleaned up the related docs and updated references to the current Lead Maintainers.
• Homebrew is running a short user survey to help inform future development.
• Homebrew accepts donations through GitHub Sponsors, OpenCollective and Patreon.

Homebrew thanks all our hard-working maintainers, contributors, sponsors and supporters for getting us this far.