binge – fetch and manage GitHub release binaries

binge is a command-line application written in Rust that simplifies the process of fetching, installing, updating, and managing binary release artifacts directly from GitHub repositories. It is designed to be a convenient tool for developers and users who rely on tools distributed as pre-built binaries on GitHub Releases.

Similar in concept to tools like eget and cargo-binstall, binge distinguishes itself by:

• Keeping track of installed binaries, allowing for easy updates (unlike eget.
• Not being restricted to projects written in Rust (unlike cargo-binstall).
• Offering a simple and focused command-line interface.
• Async first and streaming archive extraction for best performance using minimal resources.

binge works by inspecting the releases of a given GitHub repository, identifying a suitable binary artifact for your system's architecture, downloading it, and placing it in a designated installation directory. It maintains a manifest file to keep track of what has been installed and where.

Caution

Use this tool at your own risk. It installs binaries from third-party GitHub repositories, which could potentially be malicious and harm your system. Always ensure you trust the source of the binaries you install.

Installation

From release binaries

You can install pre-built binaries from the GitHub releases page and in case you have binge already installed use it to track itself:

binge install matze/binge

From source

You can also run it from source by cloning this repo and calling cargo run or install it via cargo with cargo install --path .

Usage

binge provides several subcommands to install and manage installed binaries:

Installing binaries

binge install installs one or more binaries from the specified GitHub repositories. The format for specifying a repository is <owner>/<repo>.

binge install sharkdp/fd BurntSushi/ripgrep

This command will find the latest release for sharkdp/fd and BurntSushi/ripgrep, download the appropriate binary artifact for your system, and install it.

In some cases, the downloaded binary might have a different name than desired, or you might want to avoid naming conflicts. You can specify a custom name for the installed binary by adding a colon : followed by the desired name after the repository path:

binge install idursun/jjui:jjui

This will download the binary from idursun/jjui that contains an architecture-specific suffix but install it as jjui in your installation directory.

Uninstalling binaries

binge uninstall uninstalls one or more binaries that were previously installed by binge. Specify the binaries using the <owner>/<repo> format.

binge uninstall sharkdp/fd BurntSushi/ripgrep

Looking for updates

binge update checks all currently installed binaries for new releases on GitHub and updates them if a newer version is available.

binge update

Renaming binaries

binge rename renames a binary that was previously installed by binge. Specify the binary and the new name using the <owner>/<repo>:<custom> format.

binge rename idursun/jjui:jjui

Listing installed binaries

binge list lists all binaries currently installed by binge.

binge list

By default, this command prints the repository and installed version for each binary:

sharkdp/fd 8.7.1
BurntSushi/ripgrep 13.0.0
idursun/jjui 0.6.0

You can get a list of installed binaries formatted in a way suitable for the binge install command using the install format:

binge list install

This will output something like:

sharkdp/fd BurntSushi/ripgrep idursun/jjui:jjui

This output can be useful for reinstalling the same set of binaries on another machine or after a system reinstallation.

Generating completion scripts

binge completion generates shell completion scripts for your preferred shell. Replace <shell> with your shell's name (e.g., bash, zsh, fish, powershell, elvish).

binge completion bash

Follow the instructions provided by the output to integrate completion with your shell.

Configuration

binge can be configured with a binge.toml file located in a standard XDG directory underneath the binge name. As of now it may contain a single install_path key pointing to the location where binaries are to be installed.

GitHub Personal Access Token

By default, binge's interactions with the GitHub API may be subject to rate limits. To avoid this, it is highly recommended to set the GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable to a GitHub personal access token.

For enhanced security, consider creating a fine-grained token with minimal necessary permissions (e.g., read access to public repositories).

export GITHUB_TOKEN="your_token_here"

Add this line to your shell's profile file (e.g., ~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc) to make it persistent.

Platform Support

Currently, binge only supports Linux.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT license.