What is the difference between brew install X and brew cask install X

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Homebrew-Cask is an extension to Homebrew to install GUI applications such as Google Chrome or Atom. It started independently but its maintainers now work closely with Homebrew’s core team.

Homebrew calls its package definition files “formulae” (British plural for “formula”). Homebrew-Cask calls them “casks”. A cask, just like a formula, is a file written in a Ruby-based DSL that describes how to install something.

The Cellar is where Homebrew installs things. Its default path is /usr/local/Cellar (/opt/homebrew/Cellar on Apple Silicon). It then add symlinks from standard locations to it.

For example, when you type brew install git:

  1. Homebrew installs it under /usr/local/Cellar/git/<version>/, with the git binary in /usr/local/Cellar/git/<version>/bin/git
  2. It adds a symlink from /usr/local/bin/git to that binary

This allows Homebrew to keep track of what’s installed by Homebrew versus software installed by other means.

A tap is a source of formulae. The default is homebrew/core but you can add more of them. The simplest way to create a formula for your own software is to create a GitHub repository called homebrew-<something>; put your formula file in it; then type brew tap <username>/<something> to add this new source of formulae to your Homebrew installation and so get access to all its formulae.

Some companies have internal Homebrew taps for their own utilities. There are a lot of public taps like atlassian/tap for Atlassian software, or ska-sa/tap for radio astronomy. Homebrew itself used to have additional taps like homebrew/science but they deprecated them and imported the formulæ in homebrew/core.

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