Package-manager channels

Doc type: How-to · Applies to: POSE 7.x (current stable)

Every channel below installs the exact same signed release artifact used by the verified install contract — no channel ever builds from source or repackages independently. Manifests are generated deterministically from checksums.txt and the release tag by pose release-package-manifests, run in CI only after the compatibility gate, the security gate and artifact-identity verification have all passed (spec pose-package-manager-distribution, R2).

Channels and support tiers

Linux and macOS have a one-line fast path through the release install.sh; the reproducible path on every platform remains the verified download: fetch the archive and checksums.txt, verify and extract — see Quickstart. The package-manager channels below are additive; Homebrew is not currently an end-user install channel.

Channel	Format	Publication mechanism	Publication lag	Support tier
Homebrew	`pose.rb` formula	Attached to the GitHub release as an asset. No install channel: Homebrew requires a formula to be in a tap, and installing one from a path or URL is rejected — so the published formula is consumable only by a tap that does not exist yet	n/a	Generated per release; native install verification deferred to a manual clean-host round through a throwaway tap; not consumable by an end user
WinGet	3-file manifest set (`version`/`installer`/`locale.en-US`)	Generated in CI and attached to the release; a maintainer submits it as a PR to `microsoft/winget-pkgs`	Days, gated by upstream Microsoft review — tracked per release in the closing spec's follow-ups until publication is automated	Manifest generation maintained; native local-install verification deferred to a manual round; upstream publication is a manual, tracked step

Install commands:

# Linux/macOS fast path
curl -fsSLO https://github.com/oseiaspereira88/pose/releases/latest/download/install.sh && bash install.sh

# Every platform verified path: see the install contract

# WinGet (Windows), once published to winget-pkgs
winget install Harne8.Pose

Homebrew is not an install channel

Earlier versions of this page offered brew install --formula <url>. Homebrew rejects that: a formula must be in a tap, and installing from a path or a URL is unsupported. The formula is still generated and published every release, so a tap can be stood up without regenerating anything — but until one exists there is no brew command that installs POSE, and the verified download is the supported path on macOS.

Verification

The Package channels CI workflow (.github/workflows/package-channels.yml) installs, runs pose doctor --json and uninstalls through each channel on native macos-latest and windows-latest GitHub-hosted runners when manually dispatched with a published release tag. As requested on 2026-10-01, this round is skipped/deferred until implementation is complete, tracked by spec pose-package-channels-deferred-native-verification. It does not block implementation, PR validation or release publication. No native run has been performed for the current changes, and historical runs do not verify them. On macOS the formula is installed through a throwaway local tap, since that is the only supported way to install a formula file — the artifact under test is the published pose.rb, not the tap. A channel that fails this matrix blocks that release's support-tier claim, not the release itself — package channels are additive to the verified download-and-checksum contract, never a replacement for it.

That matrix ran for the first time on v0.21.0 and exposed two install-path defects: Homebrew requires a tap, and WinGet requires local-manifest policy to be enabled. The repaired clean-host run (31240578941) then passed artifact validation, install and pose doctor --json on both macOS and Windows. This is historical evidence only; it does not establish verification of subsequent changes. This page still does not present it as an end-user Homebrew channel: a throwaway CI tap is proof of the artifact, not a maintained public tap.

Rollback

Every channel installs a specific pinned version. To roll back:

Homebrew: not applicable — there is no install channel to roll back. Re-run the verified download against the prior tag.
WinGet: winget install Harne8.Pose --version <prior-version>, or uninstall and reinstall from the prior release's manifest artifact.

pose update handles the repository contract/schema side of moving between versions once the new binary is on PATH; channel rollback only changes which binary is installed.