Development record
2026-10-24 — Tool installs default to a verified download, on macOS and Linux alike: abcd fetches the tool's official release, checks it against the release's published checksums (and its signed build record where the project publishes one), and puts it in ~/.local/bin, needing no admin rights; this is the route abcd already uses to install itself. Homebrew is not the default, because a supported Homebrew for one non-admin account cannot be created by abcd on a Mac (Homebrew's installer refuses a prefix longer than /opt/homebrew, so no home-folder prefix fits) and a shared Homebrew is often not writable by the person. Decided by the product thinker on 2026-10-24 after the Homebrew-without-admin research (iss-2610240824571059).
2026-10-24 — Tool installs default to a verified download, on macOS and Linux alike: abcd fetches the tool's official release, checks it against the release's published checksums (and its signed build record where the project publishes one), and puts it in ~/.local/bin, needing no admin rights; this is the route abcd already uses to install itself. Homebrew is not the default, because a supported Homebrew for one non-admin account cannot be created by abcd on a Mac (Homebrew's installer refuses a prefix longer than /opt/homebrew, so no home-folder prefix fits) and a shared Homebrew is often not writable by the person. Decided by the product thinker on 2026-10-24 after the Homebrew-without-admin research (iss-2610240824571059).
Frontmatter
| id | dcn-2610240845548776 |
|---|---|
| type | decision |
| date | 2026-10-24 |
.abcd/work/decisions/dcn-2610240845548776-tool-installs-default-to-a-verified.md
open on GitHub ↗ · commit history ↗
mentions4
- adr-2610241057124151abcd installs the tools it needs from downloads pinned in its own release
- iss-2610240824571059ahoy install offers a tool install through Homebrew on an account that cannot write to Homebrew: on this machine /opt/homebrew is owned by the admin account, so brew install gitleaks fails on every run, and the failure note relays Homebrew's own sudo chown advice, although abcd never escalates privileges. The registry has one install step per platform (Homebrew), so an account without admin rights has no route that works.
- itd-2610240918594138abcd installs the tools it needs for the person alone, checked
- spc-2610241008092356when-abcd-needs-another-tool-such-as-a