magus v0.3.0 is out. See what's new
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Package managers and source builds

Both routes on this page trade something away against the install script. Read the caveats before choosing one.

mise

magus installs through mise with no plugin, via its ubi backend, which pulls the GitHub release asset matching your platform:

mise use -g ubi:egladman/magus@v0.3.0

Pin it per repository by putting it in that repo's mise.toml instead:

[tools]
"ubi:egladman/magus" = "v0.3.0"

Three things to know before choosing this route.

mise owns the version, not magus self update. Upgrade with mise upgrade. Running magus self update on a mise-managed install would replace a binary mise believes it controls, and the next mise install would undo it.

Nothing verifies the release signature. ubi fetches the asset over HTTPS and trusts GitHub; it performs no signature or checksum check of its own. The platform installers and magus self update both verify the artifact against the Ed25519-signed manifest. If that guarantee matters, verify the release by hand afterwards, or use the platform installer instead.

You may get a different binary than the installer hands you. The installer defaults to the static build; ubi resolves to the dynamically linked one where a release publishes both. darwin/amd64 currently ships only a static build, so that is what it gets there.

Why not aqua, or the go backend?

aqua is mise's preferred backend where a tool is registered, and it is the better target long-term because the aqua registry carries checksum and signature metadata that ubi has no equivalent for. It is not usable yet: magus has no aqua-registry entry, so aqua:egladman/magus fails with no aqua-registry found. Getting one is an upstream pull request to aquaproj/aqua-registry, and it would close the verification gap above.

The go backend resolves and compiles, but do not use it for an install you intend to keep:

# builds, but reports: magus unknown (unknown) built unknown
mise use -g go:github.com/egladman/magus/cmd/magus@latest

go install cannot pass the -ldflags that stamp the version, commit, and build date. unknown is not cosmetic - it is the dev-build sentinel magus keys on internally to fingerprint an unstamped build, so a go-backend install presents itself to magus as a development binary rather than the release it came from. Use it to try magus, not to run it.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/egladman/magus
cd magus
go build -o magus ./cmd/magus

Add -tags noselfupdate to disable the self-update subcommand (for distro-packaged builds).

DownloadInstall magus from a signed release, verify it, set up your shell, and keep it current with magus self update. magus DocumentationThe magus documentation hub covering install, targets, spells, charms, operations, engines, remote caching, MCP, telemetry, and the interactive playground. Writing a spellAuthor a magus spell - the mgs_ contract functions, toolchain spells that contribute operations, and provider spells that back the remote cache, CI annotations, or secret resolution. AgentsHow magus equips AI agents - the installable skills that teach agents to query the knowledge graph instead of grepping, run work through targets instead of raw tools, triage generated files, and ground refactors in graph evidence; plus the guard hook any agent host can wire, the MCP daemon, MAGUS.md routing, and the drift check that keeps installed skills current.
miseubiaquapackage-managerbuild-from-sourcenoselfupdate
Last updated (5118dbc9)
Glossary

Target

A named operation (build, test, ...) you invoke with magus run <target>; it may compose a spell's tool-native operations and depend on other targets. See targets.

Ward

A coded diagnostic that inspects a resolved op and nudges or blocks an anti-pattern before it runs. See wards.

Conventions

This page uses none of the site's convention markers. The full set is on the conventions page.