What does brew tap mean?

The tap command allows Homebrew to tap into another repository of formulae. Once you've done this you've expanded your options of installable software.

These additional Git repos (inside /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps) describe sets of package formulae that are available for installation.

E.g. 

brew tap                     # list tapped repositories
brew tap <tapname>           # add tap
brew untap <tapname>         # remove a tap

Homebrew Terminology:

  • package ≡ formula ≡ ruby file: this typically deals with command line (CLI) software
  • bottle: binary program already built for some OS (macOS montery, macOS big_sur, arm64_monterey, arm64_big_sur, catalina, x86_64_linux) (configurations and make is already done)
  • casks: GUI program or font; this is an extension of homebrew that allows us to install MacOS native applications like: Google Chrome (brew cask install google-chrome), iTerm (" " iterm2), Visual Studio Code (" " visual-studio-code), etc. As well as install fonts: Roboto[ Mono] (" " font-roboto/" " font-roboto-mono), Latin Modern (" " font-latin-modern), etc.
  • taps: [Github|Gitlab|...] repositories containing additional [formulas for downloading] packages that are not standard, i.e not incorporated into the official homebrew repository containing all [formulas for downloadable] packages.

    "taps" allow you to extend the list of packages that you can install via homebrew. by "tapping" a repository you download (literally git clone) the repository locally. the repository wil contain ruby files (formulas) that tell homebrew how to download, configure, build, install, etc, an additional list of packages. then when you do brew install X, brew will scan through the official/standard homebrew repositories that you have locally, won't find a formula for X, then it will scan through your "taps" and if it finds a formula for X, will run it (the formula is a ruby file).

  • Packages are installed into /usr/local/Cellar/<package> with symlinks into /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/lib, etc.
  • Homebrew core repo formulae:
    • downloaded to /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/taps/homebrew/homebrew-core/formula

You can find any package at: https://formulae.brew.sh/


brew tap adds more repos to the list of formulae that brew tracks, updates, and installs from

brew tap <user>/<repo> makes a shallow clone of the repository at https://github.com/user/homebrew-repo. Note that brew tap prefixes the repo name with "homebrew-". After that, brew will be able to work on those formulae as if they were in Homebrew's canonical repository

The full documentation can be found here with all the available options.

Tags:

Macos

Homebrew

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