Zerobrew is a standalone package manager that installs and manages Homebrew formulas without requiring the original Homebrew system. It uses content-addressable storage to store each file blob once by its hash, enabling instant APFS clonefile copies for identical package contents across installations, which reduces both installation time and disk usage.
The project distributes pre-compiled package binaries as compressed archives verified by checksum, with a fallback to building packages from source using Homebrew's Ruby DSL when bottles are unavailable. It activates installed packages through symbolic links from the content store to system paths, avoiding file duplication and enabling clean uninstalls, while a garbage collection sweep scans for unreferenced blobs to reclaim disk space. Package formulas are fetched from third-party Git repositories, allowing decentralized distribution without a central registry.
Zerobrew provides a command-line interface for searching, installing, updating, and removing packages, along with Brewfile-based dependency management for exporting and importing package manifests. It supports package store maintenance including repair of orphaned entries and broken symlinks, batch migration of packages, and the ability to run a package without linking it to the system path. The tool also handles listing outdated packages, upgrading installed packages, and resetting all packages to a clean state.
