Taps (Third-Party Repositories)

The brew tap command adds repositories that Homebrew can use for formulae, casks and external commands. The one-argument form assumes a repository on GitHub, while the two-argument form accepts any URL supported by Git.

Code in a tap can run with your user’s privileges. Read Tap Trust before using a non-official tap.

The brew tap command

brew tap without arguments lists the currently tapped repositories. It prints nothing when no taps are installed.

$ brew tap
petere/postgresql

brew tap <user>/<repository> clones https://github.com/<user>/homebrew-<repository> into Homebrew’s tap directory. Homebrew updates the repository during brew update.

Tapping a repository does not grant whole-tap trust. Install a fully qualified item to trust only that item:

brew tap user/repository
brew install user/repository/formula

Alternatively, use brew trust first to access an item by its short name:

brew trust --formula user/repository/formula
brew install formula

See Tap Trust for formula, cask, command and whole-tap trust options.

brew tap <user>/<repository> <URL> clones a repository from the specified Git URL without assuming GitHub or a particular transport.

brew tap --repair adds missing tap manpage and shell-completion symlinks. It also corrects remote references for taps whose upstream default branch has been renamed.

brew untap <user>/<repository> [...] removes one or more taps. Homebrew deletes the local repositories and no longer loads their contents.

Repository naming conventions

On GitHub, a repository must be named homebrew-<repository> to use the one-argument form of brew tap. The homebrew- prefix can be omitted from the command:

brew tap username/foobar

This command maps to https://github.com/username/homebrew-foobar. The two-argument form does not impose this naming convention because the full URL is explicit.

Duplicate names

A tap may contain a formula with the same name as one in homebrew/core. Use the fully qualified name to select the formula from a particular tap:

brew install vim
brew install username/repository/vim

The first command installs vim from homebrew/core. The second installs the formula from username/repository and trusts that individual formula.

Give customised formulae distinct names when users should be able to select them without qualification. Dependencies of homebrew/core formulae cannot be replaced with formulae from other taps.