Brewman

Manage Homebrew formulae & casks from a fast Rust/Ratatui TUI — check versions, upgrade, and uninstall with keyboard shortcuts.

Brewman is a terminal user interface (TUI) built with Rust + Ratatui for managing Homebrew formulae and casks on macOS. Check package versions, update software sources, upgrade, or uninstall packages — all without leaving your terminal.

• Unified package view: Switch between All / Formulae / Casks with Tab (or 1 / 2 / 3)
• Clear version display: Shows current, latest, and candidate versions for every package (HEAD builds, multiple installed versions)
• One-key upgrades: Upgrade a single package, a multi-selected group, or all outdated packages at once (with confirmation prompts)
• Batch selection: Mark multiple packages with Space and upgrade them together with a single u (formulae and casks are grouped into separate brew upgrade calls)
• Live activity panel: Bottom panel shows the command currently running, streams its real-time output (e.g. ==> Downloading, ==> Pouring), plus a colored history of recent results (done / failed)
• Safe uninstall: Uninstalls require explicit confirmation (Y/N)
• Source update: Built-in brew update to sync Homebrew sources and auto-refresh the list
• Cleanup: Run brew cleanup to remove old versions and cache with the c shortcut
• Non-blocking design: brew commands run sequentially on a background worker thread; the UI stays responsive with live status feedback
• Full transparency: All command output (including errors) is shown in the details panel
• Vim-style navigation: j/k, ↑/↓, g/G for fast movement; fully keyboard-driven

┌ Brewman — Homebrew Package Manager (Formula + Cask) ────────┐
│ All (363) │ Formulae (243) │ Casks (120)       Installed 363   Outdated 1 │
├──────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ▸ ✓ ollama 0.32.15 → 0.33.0 [outdated] │ Name     : ollama                         │
│   ✓ abseil 20260817.0                  │ Type     : formula                       │
│     adobe-acrobat-reader [auto-update] │ Current  : 0.32.15                       │
│     ...                                │ Latest   : 0.33.0                        │
│                                        │ Status   : outdated, installed on request │
├──────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ▶ Upgrading ollama...                                       │
│   ==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/...           │
│   ==> Pouring ollama--0.33.0.arm64_sonoma.bottle.tar.gz     │
│ Upgrade ollama: 0.32.15 → 0.33.0 completed                  │
│ brew update completed                                       │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
↑/↓ or j/k Navigate | Space Select | Tab Switch view | u Upgrade | a Upgrade all | x Uninstall | r Update sources | l Reload | q Quit

cd Brewman
cargo install --path . --root /opt/homebrew

The brewman command will be added to your PATH (/opt/homebrew/bin) and can be run from any terminal:

brewman

Note: --root /opt/homebrew targets the brew prefix directory. If cargo is not in your PATH, run export PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/rustup/bin:$PATH" first.

cargo run

Confirmations: Upgrade (single / multi-selected / all), and uninstall all first prompt for confirmation (Y to confirm, N or Esc to cancel). Note: switching tabs or reloading the list clears the current selection.

src/
├── main.rs   # Entry point + event loop (crossterm polling, non-TTY detection)
├── app.rs    # App state, key handling, background message consumption
├── brew.rs   # Background worker thread running brew commands sequentially (mpsc)
├── model.rs  # Package data model + brew info/outdated JSON v2 parsing
└── ui.rs     # Ratatui rendering (top bar / Tabs / list / details / activity panel / help bar)

cargo test

Includes pure unit tests (JSON parsing and sorting) plus a real-environment integration test that actually invokes brew info --json=v2 --installed to verify the full pipeline.

• ratatui 0.30 — TUI rendering
• crossterm 0.29 — terminal events and raw mode
• serde / serde_json — parsing brew info / brew outdated JSON v2 output

• macOS + Homebrew
• A terminal that supports interactive TUIs (non-TTY environments show a friendly notice and exit)