Install gum with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage

Commands and aliases

• gum

Project history

The GitHub repository was created in June 2022 and the v0.1.0 release was published in July 2022. Gum builds on Charmbracelet's Go terminal UI libraries, especially Bubble Tea-related components, Bubbles, and Lip Gloss, but exposes them as composable shell commands.

The project fits Charmbracelet's broader line of polished terminal tools by turning reusable TUI primitives into Unix-style commands such as `choose`, `input`, `confirm`, `filter`, `spin`, `style`, `table`, and `write`.

Adoption history

The README documents installs through Homebrew, Arch, Fedora, Nix, Flox, WinGet, Scoop, Debian/Ubuntu, RPM repositories, FreeBSD packages, release archives, and `go install`, which shows that the tool crossed from Go developer circles into general shell-scripting package sets.

Because each command writes ordinary stdout/stderr and composes with variables, files, and pipes, Gum was adopted as a small dependency for dotfiles, setup scripts, demos, and internal operations scripts that need friendlier prompts.

How it is used

Gum commands are used directly in shell scripts: `gum choose` selects from choices, `gum input` reads text, `gum confirm` gates an action, `gum filter` narrows lists, and `gum style` formats terminal output. The official tutorial uses a Conventional Commits helper as a representative script.

Customization is mostly through command flags and environment variables, keeping the package useful in one-off scripts and shared dotfiles without a separate application framework.

Why package nerds care

Gum is interesting to package maintainers because it packages a Go TUI ecosystem as a single static-ish command suite with broad OS coverage. It also illustrates a modern pattern where a developer-friendly CLI becomes both an end-user utility and a building block for other scripts.

For shell users, it replaces many ad hoc `read`, `select`, `fzf`, spinner, and ANSI-formatting snippets with one package whose behavior can be versioned by the system package manager.

Timeline

• 2022: GitHub repository created.
• 2022: v0.1.0 release published.

Related projects

• Bubble Tea is Charmbracelet's Go framework for terminal applications.
• Bubbles supplies reusable TUI components used by Charmbracelet tools.
• Lip Gloss supplies terminal styling primitives used by Gum.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/charmbracelet/gum
• https://api.github.com/repos/charmbracelet/gum/releases?per_page=100
• https://github.com/charmbracelet/gum
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/charmbracelet/gum/main/README.md