Unpin your programs from your OS
Common programs as single self-contained binaries, built natively for Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Single self-contained binary
Each program is one executable that carries everything it needs — no shared libraries to chase, no companion data files, even vim's entire runtime is embedded. Linux builds are statically linked against musl, so they run on old and minimal systems alike.
Install without root
The unpin CLI picks the right build for your machine, verifies its checksum, and installs it in a directory of your own — no sudo, nothing system-wide. Your PATH is only edited after you say yes, and it works with the curated catalog or any GitHub release.
Built natively for every OS
One Nix flake builds the program natively for Linux, macOS, and Windows — real binaries from a single source. Linux builds cover x86_64, aarch64, armv7l, i686, ppc64le, and riscv64; macOS covers both Intel and Apple Silicon.
Reproducible from source
Every catalog flake is public and pins its inputs, so you can read exactly what we patch and link. Rebuild any package yourself with nix build github:unpins/<pkg> — you don't have to trust our CI.
Installation
curl -fsSLo unpin "https://unpins.org/unpin-$(uname -m)-linux"
chmod +x unpin
./unpin install
Builds are available for x86_64, aarch64, armv7l, i686, ppc64le, and riscv64 — uname -m picks yours.
unpin install moves the binary into ~/.local/bin and offers to add it to your PATH. Open a new shell afterwards.
To verify the download, compare sha256sum unpin against the same URL with .sha256 appended.
curl -fsSLo unpin "https://unpins.org/unpin-$(uname -m)-darwin"
chmod +x unpin
./unpin install
Works on Intel and Apple Silicon — uname -m picks the right build.
unpin install moves the binary into ~/.local/bin and offers to add it to your PATH. Open a new shell afterwards.
To verify the download, compare shasum -a 256 unpin against the same URL with .sha256 appended.
curl.exe -fsSLo unpin.exe https://unpins.org/unpin-x86_64-windows.exe
.\unpin.exe install
Needs Windows 10 1803 or newer for the bundled curl.exe.
unpin install moves it into %LOCALAPPDATA%\unpin and offers to add it to your PATH. Open a new terminal afterwards.
To verify the download, compare CertUtil -hashfile unpin.exe SHA256 against the same URL with .sha256 appended.
Usage Examples
Run a program once — nothing is installed (the default action):
unpin ffmpeg -versionInstall from the catalog — a catalog name like htop resolves to unpins/htop:
unpin install htop
htop # Ready to run!Or install from any GitHub release, given a full owner/repo:
unpin install BurntSushi/ripgrep
rg --versionAvailable Packages
76 programs in the catalog — ffmpeg, python, vim, jq, htop, and more — each a single self-contained binary for Linux, macOS, and (where viable) Windows; see the full list.
How it works
Each program in the catalog lives in its own public repo at github.com/unpins, with a Nix flake that defines the build. CI builds it for each supported OS, enforces the single-binary policy, and publishes the artifacts to that repo's GitHub release page. The unpin CLI is a thin installer on top of that.
For the longer story — what's actually different from Homebrew, Scoop, or your system package manager, how to verify a build yourself, and what we deliberately don't do — see Why unpins?