Add support for installing go packages in Brewfile

[leighmcculloch]

Verification

• This issue's title and/or description do not reference a single formula e.g. brew install wget. If they do, open an issue at https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues/new/choose instead.

Provide a detailed description of the proposed feature

Add support for installing go packages in Brewfile. Include the ability to specify go packages in the Brewfile.

For example:

brew "tree"
brew "node"
go "github.com/charmbracelet/crush"

The Brewfile already supports a variety of installation types, with mas, cask, vscode.

Tooling written in Go is so often available via go install <package>@latest commands. It'd be convenient if the Brewfile bundled and ensures go applications were installed too.

What is the motivation for the feature?

To expand the convenience of Brewfile so that it manages the bundling / setting up of more applications.

How will the feature be relevant to at least 90% of Homebrew users?

Go is a common language for so much tooling.

What alternatives to the feature have been considered?

Not do this. Manage the installation of go tools manually or via some other means.

[MikeMcQuaid]

Are all these criteria met?

https://docs.brew.sh/Brew-Bundle-and-Brewfile#adding-new-packages-support

[leighmcculloch]

be able to install software without user interaction

👍🏻 The go install command has no user interaction.

be able to check if software is installed

👍🏻 Go binaries are installed to the local GOBIN directory. The GOBIN directory can be discovered by running go env GOBIN. Looking for the respective binary there requires a) searching for a binary with the matching name b) running go version -m -json <binary-name> and looking at the output to determine whether it matches the full path the user wishes to check is installed.

For example:

$ go version -m -json $(go env GOBIN)/crush | jq -r '.Path'
github.com/charmbracelet/crush

be able to dump the installed software to a format that can be stored in a Brewfile

Does this refer to a unique name that can be used to reference the software? If so, then 👍🏻. Each Go package that gets installed has a unique path. For example: github.com/charmbracelet/crush.

not require sudo to install (casks are an exception here)

👍🏻 Go install installs binaries into the local user's path, not a system path.

be extremely widely used

👍🏻 According to this search the go install command is in more than 100k repository readme files on GitHub.

[MikeMcQuaid]

@leighmcculloch Thanks! More questions:

👍🏻 Go binaries are installed to the local GOBIN directory. The GOBIN directory can be discovered by running go env GOBIN. Looking for the respective binary there requires a) searching for a binary with the matching name b) running go version -m -json <binary-name> and looking at the output to determine whether it matches the full path the user wishes to check is installed.

Does this refer to a unique name that can be used to reference the software? If so, then 👍🏻. Each Go package that gets installed has a unique path. For example: github.com/charmbracelet/crush.

This question is: how is a binary name mapped to/from a go install <package> invocation? Does <package> always == "binary name"?

Also: would it be desired/expected that brew bundle dump would dump all previous go install binaries and brew bundle cleanup would uninstall (how?) all un-dumped go install binaries?

[leighmcculloch]

how is a binary name mapped to/from a go install <package> invocation?

The binary name is always the last word in the path. So for github.com/charmbracelet/crush the binary is crush.

would it be desired/expected that brew bundle dump'

It would be reasonable to support dump via iterating over all existing binaries in GOBIN and using the go version -json -m <binary> to collect their path and include their path into the brewfile. I assume it would be reasonable for the cleanup to remove the respective binaries as well, not all, just the referenced ones.

[MikeMcQuaid]

@leighmcculloch Thanks! One more: is there a go uninstall for removal?

[leighmcculloch]

is there a go uninstall for removal?

Unfortunately no. But this does the job: rm $(go env GOBIN)/<binary>.