Why I built Brew-TUI
If you're a macOS developer, you probably use Homebrew every day. But memorizing all the brew commands gets old — especially when you just want to see what's outdated, upgrade a few packages, or check if a service is running.
So I built Brew-TUI: a full visual terminal UI for Homebrew.
What it looks like
It's a keyboard-driven TUI built with React 18 + Ink 5 (terminal renderer) and Zustand for state management. You get:
- Dashboard — package stats, outdated counts, services, system info at a glance
- Installed — browse and filter all formulae and casks with version info
- Search — find and install packages without leaving the TUI
- Outdated — see version diffs, upgrade one by one or all at once
- Services — start/stop/restart Homebrew services
-
Doctor — run
brew doctorand see warnings - Package Info — dependencies, caveats, quick actions
Navigate with 1-0 to jump to views, j/k to scroll, / to search, Tab to cycle. Press L to switch between English and Spanish.
The tech stack
- TypeScript (strict mode, ESM-only)
- React 18 for the component tree
-
Ink 5 as the terminal renderer (
<Box>= flexbox,<Text>= styled output) - Zustand for state management
- tsup for building
The data flow is: Views → Zustand stores → brew-api → Parsers → brew CLI (spawn). Streaming operations (install, upgrade) use an AsyncGenerator that yields lines in real time.
Pro features
There's also a freemium tier with:
- Profiles — export/import your Homebrew setup across machines
- Smart Cleanup — find orphan packages and reclaim disk space
- History — track every install/uninstall/upgrade
- Security Audit — scan packages against the OSV vulnerability database
- BrewBar — a macOS menu bar companion app (Swift 6 / SwiftUI) that shows outdated counts and lets you upgrade from the menu bar
Install
# npm
npm install -g brew-tui
# Homebrew
brew tap MoLinesGitHub/tap
brew install brew-tui
# Run without installing
npx brew-tui
Links
- GitHub: MoLinesGitHub/Brew-TUI
- npm: brew-tui
Feedback, issues, and stars welcome! 🍺