Homebrew Cheatsheet

I use Homebrew every day but still find myself looking up the same handful of commands. This is my personal reference, covering the commands I reach for most and Brewfile for keeping a new machine setup reproducible.

Commands

Task	Command
Update package index	`brew update`
Upgrade all installed packages	`brew upgrade`
Upgrade a specific package	`brew upgrade <package>`
Remove old versions of packages	`brew cleanup`
Check for problems	`brew doctor`
List installed packages	`brew list`
List outdated packages	`brew outdated`
List top-level installs (no dependents)	`brew leaves`
Show what depends on a package	`brew uses --installed <pkg>`
Uninstall a package	`brew uninstall <package>`

brew leaves is the one I find most useful when cleaning up. It shows only packages that nothing else depends on, so you can safely remove them without breaking other installs.

Brewfile

A Brewfile lets you declare your installed packages in a text file and restore them on a new machine with a single command. I keep mine in my dotfiles so a new machine bootstrap is just running brew bundle.

# Dump currently installed packages to a Brewfile
brew bundle dump --file=~/Brewfile

# Install everything in a Brewfile
brew bundle install --file=~/Brewfile

An example Brewfile:

Brewfile

brew "git"
brew "fnm"
brew "direnv"
cask "cursor"
cask "rectangle"

brew entries are CLI tools installed to /usr/local/bin; cask entries are macOS applications. Running brew bundle dump captures everything currently installed, which makes it easy to snapshot a working setup before wiping a machine.

Mac Dev Setup

My current macOS development setup guide, covering installing apps and configuring system settings

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I found some tricks with getting a Nomad dev environment working reliably on Mac, particularly a Apple Silicon Mac.

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