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Zinit Packages#

Introduction#

Zinit can install from so-called packages – GitHub repositories holding a package.json file with the Zinit meta-data in them.

This way you don't have to (but still can) specify ices, which might be handy when the ice-mod list is long and complex.

Motivation#

The motivation for adding such functionality was:

  1. Zinit is a flexible plugin manager, however, users often feel overwhelmed by its configuration.

  2. It has multiple package-manager -like features, such as:

    • it can run Makefiles,
    • automatically provide shims (i.e.: forwarder scripts) for the binaries,
    • extend $PATH to expose the binaries, and more.

  3. In general, Zinit has many hooks which allow surprising things, however their content often evolves to a gradually better and better one and it's hard to keep track of the current version of them.

  4. So a solution appeared: why not publish a package at GitHub with the plugin configurations (i.e.: ice-mod lists) stored in a file?

Introductory Example#

This way, instead of the following command used to install fzf:

zinit lucid as=program pick="$ZPFX/bin/(fzf|fzf-tmux)" \
    atclone="cp shell/completion.zsh _fzf_completion; \
      cp bin/(fzf|fzf-tmux) $ZPFX/bin" \
    make="PREFIX=$ZPFX install" for \
        junegunn/fzf

you only need:

zinit pack for fzf

to get the complete setup of the fuzzy finder, including:

  • the completion,
  • the additional executable-script fzf-tmux.

The installation is real, package-manager -like, because you don't need to invoke Zinit anymore once installed to use fzf (that's because fzf is just a binary program and not e.g.: a shell function).

You can also update the package with zinit update fzf – it'll cause the project to refresh and rebuild, like with a "normal" package manager such as apt-get. However, it'll actually be more like to emerge from Gentoo, because the installation will be from the source… unless… the user will pick up a binary installation by profile-argument specified in the pack'' ice :)

Pros Of Using Zinit Package For Regular Software Installations#

Using Zinit to install software where one could use a regular package manager has several advantages:

  1. Pro: The Zinit packages typically use the URLs to the official and latest distributions of the software (like e.g.: the ecs-cli package, which uses the URL: https://amazon-ecs-cli.s3.amazonaws.com/ecs-cli-linux-amd64-latest when installing on Linux).

  2. Pro: You can influence the installation easily by specifying Zinit ice-mods, e.g.:

    zinit pack=bgn atclone="cp fzy.1 $ZPFX/man/man1" for fzy

    to install also the man page for the fzy fuzzy finder (this omission in the package will be fixed soon).

  3. Pro: The installation is much more flexible than a normal package manager. Example available degrees of freedom:

    • to install from Git or from release-tarball, or from binary-release file,
    • to install via shims or via extending $PATH, or by copying to $ZPFX/bin,
    • to download files and apply patches to the source by using the Patch-Dl annex features.

  4. Pro: The installations are located in the user home directory, which doesn't require root access. Also, for Gems and Node modules, they are installed in their plugin directory, which can have advantages (e.g.: isolation allowing e.g: easy removal by rm -rf …).

  5. Con: You're somewhat "on your own", with no support from any package maintainer.

Thus, summing up 1. with 4., it might be nice/convenient to, for example, have the latest ECS CLI binary installed in the home directory, without using root access and always the latest, and – summing up with 2. and 3. – to, for example, have always the latest README downloaded by an additional ice: dl'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/amazon-ecs-cli/master/README.md' (and then to have the README converted into a man page by the remark Markdown processor or other via an atclone'' ice, as the tool doesn't have any official man page).

The Zsh-Packages Organization#

Packages are hosted on GitHub, by the zdharma-continuum org:

  • asciidoctor – the AsciiDoc converter, installed as a Gem locally in the plugin directory with use of the Bin-Gem-Node annex,
  • doctoc – the TOC (table of contents) generator for Markdown documents, installed as a Node package locally in the plugin directory with use of the Bin-Gem-Node annex,
  • ecs-cli – the Amazon ECS command line tool, downloaded directly from the URL (or from the URL for OS X – automatically selected),
  • firefox-dev – Firefox Developer Edition, downloaded from the URL (or from the URL for OS X; the OS X installation only downloads the dmg image, so it is'nt yet complete),
  • fzf – the fuzzy-finder, installed from source (from a tarball or Git) or from the GitHub-releases binary,
  • ls_colors – the trapd00r/LS_COLORS color definitions for GNU ls, ogham/exa and Zshell's completion.

Adding Your Own Package#

  1. Contact the author to have the repository at Zsh-Packages organization.

  2. Populate the package.json – I suggest grabbing the one for fzf or doctoc and doing a few substitutions like doctoc → your-project and then simply filling the default profile in the zinit-ices object – it's obvious how to do this.

  3. The project name in the package.json should start with zsh-. The prefix will be skipped when specifying it with Zinit.

  4. Commit and push.

That's all!