Installation

Install from npm (recommended)

npm install -g snpm

The npm package downloads a pre-built native binary for your platform and exposes:

snpm — the primary CLI.
spx — a shorthand for snpm dlx.

Supported platforms: macOS, Linux, and Windows on x64 and arm64. Node.js 18+ is required for the install script.

Install from a GitHub Release

Native binaries are published for each release at github.com/binbandit/snpm/releases. Download the archive for your platform and place the snpm (and optionally snpm-switch) binaries on your PATH.

Build from source

If you want to track main or contribute:

Prerequisites

Rust toolchain — install from rustup.rs.
Git.

git clone https://github.com/binbandit/snpm.git
cd snpm

cargo install --path snpm-cli --force
cargo install --path snpm-switch --force   # optional: pinned packageManager support

This installs snpm and (optionally) snpm-switch into your Cargo bin directory (usually ~/.cargo/bin).

Verify

snpm --version
snpm config

snpm config prints the resolved cache/data paths, registry, install settings, allow-scripts list, and logging configuration.

Pin snpm per project

snpm-switch honors the packageManager field in package.json and downloads the requested snpm build on demand:

package.json

{
  "packageManager": "snpm@2026.5.16"
}

Helpful commands:

snpm switch which                       # show the resolved snpm binary
snpm switch cache                       # inspect/clear the version cache
snpm switch list                        # list cached snpm versions
snpm --switch-version 2026.5.16 install # one-off override
snpm --switch-ignore-package-manager install

When the npm shim is installed, it automatically prefers snpm-switch if it is available.

Update

# npm install
npm update -g snpm

# from source
cd snpm
git pull
cargo install --path snpm-cli --force

Uninstall

# npm install
npm uninstall -g snpm

# cargo install
cargo uninstall snpm-cli
cargo uninstall snpm-switch

To also reclaim the on-disk store, run snpm clean --all.