Installation

Meta Package Manager is distributed on PyPI.

So you can install the latest stable release with uv:

$ uv tool install meta-package-manager

Danger

Misleading package name

Angry package

There is a mpm Python module on PyPI that has nothing to do with this project. Avoid it!

The real package is named meta-package-manager. Only the latter provides the mpm CLI you’re looking for.

Try it now

You can try Meta Package Manager right now in your terminal, without installing any dependency or virtual env thanks to uvx:

$ uvx meta-package-manager
Installed 21 packages in 42ms
Usage: mpm [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

$ uvx meta-package-manager@5.21.0
Installed 21 packages in 42ms
Usage: mpm [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

$ uvx --from git+https://github.com/kdeldycke/meta-package-manager -- mpm

$ uvx --from file:///Users/me/code/meta-package-manager -- mpm

This will download meta-package-manager (the package), and run mpm, the CLI included in the package.

Try the library

You can also try the library itself in an interactive Python shell without installing anything on your system:

$ uvx --with meta-package-manager python
Installed 21 packages in 42ms
Python 3.13.2 (main, Feb  4 2025, 14:51:09) [Clang 16.0.0 (clang-1600.0.26.6)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from meta_package_manager.pool import pool
>>> list(pool['brew'].installed)
[...]
>>>

Installation methods

mpm is available on several popular package managers:

Yo dawg, I herd you like package managers...

Easiest way is to install uv, then install meta-package-manager system-wide with the uv tool command:

$ uv tool install meta-package-manager

Then you can run mpm directly:

$ mpm --version

To use mpm as a library in your project instead:

$ uv add meta-package-manager

pipx is a great way to install Python applications globally:

$ pipx install meta-package-manager

You can install the latest stable release and its dependencies with a simple pip call:

$ python -m pip install meta-package-manager

Other variations includes:

$ pip install meta-package-manager

$ pip3 install meta-package-manager

If you have difficulties to use pip, see pip’s own installation instructions.

Meta Package Manager is available as an Homebrew formula, so you just need to:

$ brew install meta-package-manager

Meta Package Manager is available in the main repository of Scoop, so you just need to:

> scoop install main/meta-package-manager

ZeroBrew is a fast, Homebrew-compatible package manager written in Rust:

$ zb install meta-package-manager

Stew installs pre-compiled binaries from GitHub Releases:

$ stew install kdeldycke/meta-package-manager

An mpm package is available on AUR and can be installed with any AUR helper:

$ pacaur -S meta-package-manager

$ pacman -S meta-package-manager

$ paru -S meta-package-manager

$ yay -S meta-package-manager

Binaries

Binaries are compiled at each release, so you can skip the installation process above and download the standalone executables directly.

This is the preferred way of testing mpm without polluting your machine. They also offer the possibility of running the CLI on older systems not supporting the minimal Python version required by mpm.

Platform

arm64

x86_64

Linux

Download mpm-linux-arm64.bin

Download mpm-linux-x64.bin

macOS

Download mpm-macos-arm64.bin

Download mpm-macos-x64.bin

Windows

Download mpm-windows-arm64.exe

Download mpm-windows-x64.exe

All links above points to the latest released version of mpm.

See also

If you need to test previous versions for regression, compatibility or general troubleshooting, you’ll find the old binaries attached as assets to past releases on GitHub.

Caution

Each commit to the development branch triggers the compilation of binaries. This way you can easily test the bleeding edge version of mpm and report any issue.

Look at the list of latest binary builds. Then select the latest Build & release/release.yaml workflow run and download the binary artifact corresponding to your platform and architecture.

Note

ABI targets

$ file ./mpm*
./mpm-linux-arm64.bin:   ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, ARM aarch64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux-aarch64.so.1, BuildID[sha1]=520bfc6f2bb21f48ad568e46752888236552b26a, for GNU/Linux 3.7.0, stripped
./mpm-linux-x64.bin:     ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, BuildID[sha1]=56ba24bccfa917e6ce9009223e4e83924f616d46, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, stripped
./mpm-macos-arm64.bin:   Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64
./mpm-macos-x64.bin:     Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
./mpm-windows-arm64.exe: PE32+ executable (console) Aarch64, for MS Windows
./mpm-windows-x64.exe:   PE32+ executable (console) x86-64, for MS Windows

Self-bootstrapping

In a funny twist, mpm can be installed with itself.

Which means there is a way to bootstrap its deployment on an unknown system. Just download the binary corresponding to your platform and architecture:

$ curl --fail --remote-name https://github.com/kdeldycke/meta-package-manager/releases/latest/download/mpm-macos-x64.bin
################################################### 100.0%

$ file ./mpm-macos-x64.bin
./mpm-macos-x64.bin: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64

$ chmod +x ./mpm-macos-x64.bin

$ ./mpm-macos-x64.bin --version
mpm, version 5.7.0

Then let mpm discovers which package managers are available on your machine and choose the one providing a path to mpm installation:

$ ./mpm-macos-x64.bin install meta-package-manager
warning: Skip unavailable cargo manager.
warning: Skip unavailable steamcmd manager.
Installation priority: brew > cask > composer > gem > mas > npm > pip > pipx > vscode > yarn
warning: No meta-package-manager package found on brew.
warning: No meta-package-manager package found on cask.
warning: No meta-package-manager package found on composer.
warning: No meta-package-manager package found on gem.
warning: No meta-package-manager package found on mas.
warning: No meta-package-manager package found on npm.
warning: pip does not implement search operation.
meta-package-manager existence unconfirmed, try to directly install it...
Install meta-package-manager package with pip...
Collecting meta-package-manager
  Downloading meta_package_manager-5.11.1-py3-none-any.whl (161 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 161.5/161.5 kB 494.7 kB/s eta 0:00:00
(...)
Installing collected packages: (...) meta-package-manager
Successfully installed (...) meta-package-manager-5.11.1

And now you can remove the local binary and enjoy the system-wide mpm that was installed by itself:

$ rm -f ./mpm-macos-x64.bin

$ which mpm
/opt/homebrew/bin/mpm

$ mpm --version
mpm, version 5.11.1

Tip

At this moment, mpm can be installed with itself via these managers:

$ mpm --brew install meta-package-manager

$ mpm --pacaur install meta-package-manager

$ mpm --pacman install meta-package-manager

$ mpm --paru install meta-package-manager

$ mpm --pip  install meta-package-manager

$ mpm --pipx install meta-package-manager

$ mpm --stew install kdeldycke/meta-package-manager

$ mpm --uvx install meta-package-manager

$ mpm --yay  install meta-package-manager

$ mpm --zerobrew install meta-package-manager

Python module usage

Meta Package Manager should now be available system-wide:

$ mpm --version
mpm, version 4.13.0
(...)

If not, you can directly execute the module from Python:

$ python -m meta_package_manager --version
mpm, version 4.13.0
(...)

Password prompts and sudo

The majority of package managers on Linux requires sudo to perform system-wide operations.

On other OSes you’ll be prompted to enter your password to install kernel extensions:

$ brew install --cask macfuse
==> Caveats
macfuse requires a kernel extension to work.
If the installation fails, retry after you enable it in:
  System Preferences → Security & Privacy → General

For more information, refer to vendor documentation or this Apple Technical Note:
  https://developer.apple.com/library/content/technotes/tn2459/_index.html

==> Downloading https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/releases/download/macfuse-4.2.5/macfuse-4.2.5.dmg
Already downloaded: /Users/kde/Library/Caches/Homebrew/downloads/d7961d772f16bad95962f1a780b545a5dbb4788ec6e1ec757994bb5296397b1c--macfuse-4.2.5.dmg
==> Installing Cask macfuse
==> Running installer for macfuse; your password may be necessary.
Package installers may write to any location; options such as `--appdir` are ignored.
Password:

Both cases are not handled gracefully by mpm, which doesn’t support (yet) interactive password management and capture.

A workaround on Linux is to install mpm with sudo, so you’ll be able to invoke it with sudo too:

$ sudo uv tool install meta-package-manager
(...)
$ sudo mpm upgrade
(...)

Shell completion

Completion for popular shell rely on Click feature.

Add this to ~/.bashrc:

eval "$(_MPM_COMPLETE=bash_source mpm)"

Add this to ~/.zshrc:

eval "$(_MPM_COMPLETE=zsh_source mpm)"

Add this to ~/.config/fish/completions/mpm.fish:

eval (env _MPM_COMPLETE=fish_source mpm)

Alternatively, export the generated completion code as a static script to be executed:

$ _MPM_COMPLETE=bash_source mpm > ~/.mpm-complete.bash

Then source it from ~/.bashrc:

. ~/.mpm-complete.bash

$ _MPM_COMPLETE=zsh_source mpm > ~/.mpm-complete.zsh

Then source it from ~/.zshrc:

. ~/.mpm.zsh

_MPM_COMPLETE=fish_source mpm > ~/.config/fish/completions/mpm.fish

Default dependencies

This is a graph of the default, main dependencies of the Python package:

        flowchart TD
    classDef missing stroke-dasharray: 5
    beartype["beartype\n0.22.8"]
    boltons["boltons\n25.0.0"]
    boolean-py["boolean.py\n5.0"]
    bracex["bracex\n2.6"]
    certifi["certifi\n2025.11.12"]
    charset-normalizer["charset-normalizer\n3.4.4"]
    click-extra["click-extra\n7.3.0"]
    click_0["click\n8.3.1"]
    cloup["cloup\n3.0.8"]
    cyclonedx-python-lib["cyclonedx-python-lib\n11.6.0"]
    deepmerge["deepmerge\n2.0"]
    defusedxml["defusedxml\n0.7.1"]
    distro["distro\n1.9.0"]
    extra-platforms["extra-platforms\n5.1.0"]
    idna["idna\n3.11"]
    license-expression["license-expression\n30.4.4"]
    meta-package-manager["meta-package-manager\n6.0.0"]
    more-itertools["more-itertools\n10.8.0"]
    packageurl-python["packageurl-python\n0.17.6"]
    ply["ply\n3.11"]
    py-serializable["py-serializable\n2.1.0"]
    pyparsing["pyparsing\n3.2.5"]
    pyyaml["PyYAML\n6.0.3"]
    rdflib["rdflib\n7.5.0"]
    requests["requests\n2.32.5"]
    semantic-version["semantic-version\n2.10.0"]
    sortedcontainers["sortedcontainers\n2.4.0"]
    spdx-tools["spdx-tools\n0.8.3"]
    tabulate["tabulate\n0.9.0"]
    tomli-w["tomli_w\n1.2.0"]
    typing-extensions["typing_extensions\n4.15.0"]
    uritools["uritools\n5.0.0"]
    urllib3["urllib3\n2.6.0"]
    wcmatch["wcmatch\n10.1"]
    xmltodict["xmltodict\n1.0.2"]
    click-extra -- ">=0.9" --> tabulate
    click-extra -- ">=10.0" --> wcmatch
    click-extra -- ">=2.0" --> deepmerge
    click-extra -- ">=2.32.5" --> requests
    click-extra -- ">=25.0.0" --> boltons
    click-extra -- ">=3.0.7" --> cloup
    click-extra -- ">=5.0.0" --> extra-platforms
    click-extra -- ">=8.3.1" --> click_0
    cloup -- ">=8.0,<9.0" --> click_0
    cyclonedx-python-lib -- ">=0.11,<2" --> packageurl-python
    cyclonedx-python-lib -- ">=2.1.0,<3.0.0" --> py-serializable
    cyclonedx-python-lib -- ">=2.4.0,<3.0.0" --> sortedcontainers
    cyclonedx-python-lib -- ">=30,<31" --> license-expression
    cyclonedx-python-lib -- ">=4.6,<5.0" --> typing-extensions
    extra-platforms -- ">=1.9.0" --> distro
    license-expression -- ">=4.0" --> boolean-py
    meta-package-manager -- ">=0.16.0" --> packageurl-python
    meta-package-manager -- ">=0.8.2" --> spdx-tools
    meta-package-manager -- ">=0.9" --> tabulate
    meta-package-manager -- ">=1.0.0" --> xmltodict
    meta-package-manager -- ">=1.1.0" --> tomli-w
    meta-package-manager -- ">=10.8.0" --> more-itertools
    meta-package-manager -- ">=11.2.0" --> cyclonedx-python-lib
    meta-package-manager -- ">=25.0.0" --> boltons
    meta-package-manager -- ">=5.0.0" --> extra-platforms
    meta-package-manager -- ">=7.3.0" --> click-extra
    py-serializable -- ">=0.7.1,<0.8.0" --> defusedxml
    rdflib -- ">=2.1.0,<4" --> pyparsing
    requests -- ">=1.21.1,<3" --> urllib3
    requests -- ">=2,<4" --> charset-normalizer
    requests -- ">=2.5,<4" --> idna
    requests -- ">=2017.4.17" --> certifi
    spdx-tools -- "any" --> beartype
    spdx-tools -- "any" --> click_0
    spdx-tools -- "any" --> license-expression
    spdx-tools -- "any" --> ply
    spdx-tools -- "any" --> pyyaml
    spdx-tools -- "any" --> rdflib
    spdx-tools -- "any" --> semantic-version
    spdx-tools -- "any" --> uritools
    spdx-tools -- "any" --> xmltodict
    wcmatch -- ">=2.1.1" --> bracex

Extra dependencies

By default, mpm supports TOML configuration files and all standard table formats. Optional extras unlock additional configuration file formats and table output formats:

Extra

Install command

Unlocks

hjson

 
$ uv pip install meta-package-manager[hjson]

json5

 
$ uv pip install meta-package-manager[json5]

  • JSON5 config files: --config mpm.json5

jsonc

 
$ uv pip install meta-package-manager[jsonc]

  • JSONC config files: --config mpm.jsonc

toml

 
$ uv pip install meta-package-manager[toml]

xml

 
$ uv pip install meta-package-manager[xml]

yaml

 
$ uv pip install meta-package-manager[yaml]

Tip

Install all extras at once with:

$ uv pip install meta-package-manager[hjson,json5,jsonc,toml,xml,yaml]