install-release 0.7.1

Simple package manager to easily install, update and manage any tool directly from github or gitlab releases

🐧 Install Release

CLI to install any CLI

Install Release is a CLI tool by name ir to install any single-binary executable package for your device(Linux/MacOS/WSL) directly from their GitHub or GitLab releases and keep them updated. Consider it as a CLI to install, update and remove any single binary tools from GitHub/GitLab releases.

This can be any tool you want to install, which is pre-compiled for your device and present on GitHub or GitLab releases.

INFO: It's mainly for installing tools that are not directly available officially by package managers like apt, yum, pacman, brew etc.

Table of Contents 📚

• Table of Contents 📚
• Getting started ⚡
  • Installation
  • Manage your tools
• Example usage ir --help 💡
  • Install completion for cli 🎠
  • Install tool from GitHub/GitLab releases 🌈
    • Install as system package (deb/rpm/appimage) 📦
  • Install tool via mise registry 🧩
  • Install specific release asset from GitHub/GitLab releases 🔦
    • Method 1: Interactive Selection (Recommended)
    • Method 2: Command-line Flag
  • List installed tools 📋
  • Remove installed release ❌
  • Update all previously installed tools to the latest version 🕶
    • Update installed system packages 📦
  • Pull state templates for installing tools 📄
  • Hold Update to specific installed tool ✋
  • Configure tool installation path 🗂️
  • Configure updates for pre-release versions 🔌
  • Configure GitHub/GitLab tokens for higher rate limit 🔑

Getting started

Installation

Option 1: Standalone binary (recommended)

Download the latest binary for your platform from GitHub Releases — no Python required.

Requires libmagic as a runtime dependency.

# Linux x86_64
curl -Lo ~/bin/ir https://github.com/Rishang/install-release/releases/latest/download/install-release-linux-x86_64
chmod +x ~/bin/ir

# Bash
# echo 'export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc 

# Zsh
# echo 'export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc 

# Fish
# echo 'set -gx PATH $HOME/bin $PATH' >> ~/.config/fish/config.fish 

Option 2: pip install

Prerequisites:

• Python 3.9 or higher
• pip
• libmagic

pip install -U install-release

---

Set up the PATH for shell (e.g. ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc):

Tools installed via ir will be installed to ~/bin by default.

export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH" 

If you want to change the installation path, you can use the ir config --path <path> flag.

---

Manage your tools

Example: Installing deno (Rust-based JavaScript runtime) directly from its GitHub releases:

# Usage: ir get [GITHUB-URL or GITLAB-URL or @mise/TOOL-NAME]
❯ ir get https://github.com/denoland/deno

Verify the installation:

❯ which deno
~/bin/deno

❯ deno --version
deno 1.46.3 ...

Example: Installing GitLab CLI with a custom binary name glab:

❯ ir get https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cli -n glab

Verify the installation:

❯ which glab
~/bin/glab

❯ glab --version
glab 1.80.0 ...

Once installed, you can manage your tools with these simple commands:

• List: ir ls — See all installed tools and versions.
• Update: ir upgrade — Upgrade all installed tools to their latest releases.
• Remove: ir rm deno — Remove a tool from your system.

For more details, check the Table of Contents.

Example usage ir --help 💡

# Help page

❯ ir --help
Usage: ir [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

  GitHub / GitLab / Mise release installer based on your system (Linux/MacOS)

  Options:
    --install-completion   Install completion for the current shell.
    --show-completion      Show completion for the current shell, to copy it or customize the installation.
    --help                Show this message and exit.

  Commands:
    get      | Install CLI tool from GitHub/GitLab releases or mise registry
    upgrade  | Upgrade all installed CLI tools from their repositories
    ls       | List all installed CLI tools
    rm       | Remove any installed CLI tool
    config   | Set configs for Install-Release
    state    | Show the current stored state of Install-Release
    pull     | Install tools from the remote install-release state URL
    hold     | Keep an installed CLI tool's updates on hold.
    me       | Update the Install-Release tool.

For sub-command help use: ir <sub-command> --help

Example: ir get --help

Install completion for cli 🎠

# ir --install-completion [SHELL: bash|zsh|fish|powershell]
# Example for zsh:
ir --install-completion zsh

Install tool from GitHub/GitLab releases 🌈

❯ ir get "https://github.com/ahmetb/kubectx"

📑 Repo     : ahmetb/kubectx
🌟 Stars    : 13295
✨ Language : Go
🔥 Title    : Faster way to switch between clusters and namespaces in kubectl

                              🚀 Install: kubectx
┏━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Name    ┃ Selected Item                      ┃ Version ┃ Size Mb ┃ Downloads ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ kubectx │ kubectx_v0.9.4_linux_x86_64.tar.gz │ v0.9.4  │ 1.0     │ 43811     │
└─────────┴────────────────────────────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴───────────┘
Install this tool (Y/n/?): y
 INFO     Downloaded: 'kubectx_v0.9.4_linux_x86_64.tar.gz' at /tmp/dn_kubectx_ph6i7dmk                                                               utils.py:159
 INFO     install /tmp/dn_kubectx_ph6i7dmk/kubectx /home/noobi/bin/kubectx                                                                  core.py:132
 INFO     Installed: kubectx

# checking if kubectx is installed
❯ which kubectx
/home/noobi/bin/kubectx

❯ kubectx --version
0.9.4

Install as system package (deb/rpm/appimage) 📦

If the release asset files provide a package file for your system, you can install tools as a system package (deb/rpm/appimage) instead of a standalone binary by using the --pkg flag.

This is useful for tools that provide .deb, .rpm or appimage releases that might need other system package dependencies to work.

# Example installation of RedisInsight, a dashboard to manage Redis
❯ ir get https://github.com/redis/RedisInsight --pkg

Install tool via mise registry 🧩

Some tools (like Terraform, Packer, etc.) don't publish platform-specific binaries on GitHub releases — they host their own download URLs instead. For these tools, ir can resolve the correct download URL via the mise / aqua registry using the @mise/ prefix.

# Usage: ir get @mise/<tool-name>
❯ ir get @mise/terraform

                     Install terraform (via mise/aqua)
┏━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Tool      ┃ Version  ┃ File                     ┃ URL                              ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ terraform │ v1.12.0  │ terraform_1.12.0_linu... │ https://releases.hashicorp.c...  │
└───────────┴──────────┴──────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────┘
Install this tool (Y/n): y

Tools installed via @mise/ are also tracked by ir ls and upgraded with ir upgrade just like GitHub/GitLab tools.

Note: The mise provider currently only supports tools with HTTP-based download URLs in the aqua registry. Tools that use github_release type assets should be installed directly via their GitHub URL (ir get <github-url>) instead.

Install specific release asset from GitHub/GitLab releases 🔦

In rare cases where install-release does not automatically find the correct release file for your system, you can manually specify the release file name. There are two ways to do this:

Method 1: Interactive Selection (Recommended)

During the installation prompt, type ? to view all available release assets and select the one you want:

❯ ir get https://github.com/ekzhang/bore

📑 Repo     : ekzhang/bore
🌟 Stars    : 8234
✨ Language : Rust
🔥 Title    : A simple CLI tool for making tunnels to localhost

                              🚀 Install: bore
┏━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Name ┃ Selected Item                            ┃ Version ┃ Size Mb ┃ Downloads ┃
┡━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ bore │ bore-v0.4.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl... │ v0.4.0  │ 1.2     │ 1523      │
└──────┴──────────────────────────────────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴───────────┘

Path: /home/noobi/bin
Install this tool (Y/n/?): ?

                    📦 Available Assets for bore
┏━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ ID ┃ Filename                                        ┃ Size (MB) ┃ Downloads ┃
┡━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ 1  │ bore-v0.4.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz    │ 1.2       │ 1523      │
│ 2  │ bore-v0.4.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.rpm        │ 1.3       │ 845       │
│ 3  │ bore-v0.4.0-aarch64-unknown-linux-musl.deb      │ 1.1       │ 234       │
│ 4  │ bore-v0.4.0-x86_64-apple-darwin.dmg             │ 1.2       │ 456       │
│ 5  │ bore-v0.4.0-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz          │ 1.2       │ 1523      │
└────┴─────────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────┴───────────┘

Enter your desired file ID to install (or 'n' to cancel): 3

The tool will automatically parse the selected filename into keywords and store them for future upgrades.

Method 2: Command-line Flag

You can also specify the release file name directly using the -f / --file flag:

❯ ir get [GITHUB-URL or GITLAB-URL] -f [release asset filename]

Example: Installing the bore tool from GitHub with the release file name bore-v0.4.0-arm-unknown-linux-musleabi.tar.gz. Here, the keywords generated are: bore, v0.4.0, arm, linux, musleabi

❯ ir get https://github.com/ekzhang/bore -f bore-v0.4.0-arm-unknown-linux-musleabi.tar.gz

How it works:

• The tool parses the release file name into keywords (removing version numbers and file extensions)
• These keywords are stored in the state file to match the correct release file during future tool upgrades
• This ensures consistent upgrades to the same release variant

Note: If install-release fails to identify the correct release package for your system, please raise a GitHub issue to help improve the tool.

List installed tools 📋

❯ ir ls

                       Installed tools
┏━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Name      ┃ Version ┃ Url                                  ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ terrascan │ v1.15.2 │ https://github.com/tenable/terrascan │
│ gron      │ v0.7.1  │ https://github.com/tomnomnom/gron    │
│ kubectx   │ v0.9.4  │ https://github.com/ahmetb/kubectx    │
└───────────┴─────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┘

Remove installed release ❌

# Remove installed release

❯ ir rm gron

INFO     Removed: gron

Update all previously installed tools to the latest version 🕶

❯ ir upgrade

Fetching: https://github.com/tenable/terrascan#terrascan
Fetching: https://github.com/ahmetb/kubectx#kubectx

Following tools will be upgraded:

terrascan

Upgrade these tools (Y/n): y

Updating: terrascan, v1.15.0 => v1.15.2
 INFO     Downloaded: 'terrascan_1.15.2_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz' at /tmp/dn_terrascan_0as71a6v
 INFO     install /tmp/dn_terrascan_0as71a6v/terrascan ~/bin/terrascan
 INFO     Installed: terrascan

Progress... ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100% 0:00:00

Update installed system packages 📦

If you have tools installed as packages (deb/rpm/appimage), ir upgrade will inform you if updates are available but will not install them. To upgrade packages, run:

❯ ir upgrade --pkg

This will prompt for sudo permissions to upgrade the system packages.

Pull state templates for installing tools 📄

You can push your state to somewhere like GitHub and use it on any other device to sync the tools installed via ir.

❯ ir pull --url https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Rishang/dotFiles/main/templates/install-release/state.json

Hold Update to specific installed tool ✋

In case you want to hold an update for a specific tool, you can use the hold {tool-name} command which will pause updates for that tool.

Example: Keep tool named k9s update on hold:

❯ ir hold k9s
 INFO     Update on hold for, k9s to True

You can list tools on hold updates by using the ls --hold command:

❯ ir ls --hold
             Installed tools kept on hold
┏━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Name ┃ Version ┃ Url                               ┃
┡━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ k9s  │ v0.26.7 │ https://github.com/derailed/k9s   │
└──────┴─────────┴───────────────────────────────────┘

In case you want to remove the update hold for a specific tool, you can use the hold --unset {tool-name} command:

❯ ir hold --unset k9s
 INFO     Update on hold for, k9s to False

Configure tool installation path

❯ ir config --path ~/.local/bin

INFO   Updated path to:  ~/.local/bin
INFO   Done

Configure updates for pre-release versions 🔌

This is useful when you want to install pre-release versions of tools like beta or alpha releases. By default, it is set to False, in which case it will only check for the latest stable release.

❯ ir config --pre-release

Configure GitHub/GitLab tokens for higher rate limit 🔑

For GitHub:

❯ ir config --github-token [your github token]

INFO: Updated GitHub token
INFO: Done.

For GitLab:

❯ ir config --gitlab-token [your gitlab token]

INFO: Updated GitLab token
INFO: Done.