vfox

README

vfox

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If you switch between development projects which expect different environments, specifically different runtime versions or ambient libraries, or you are tired of all kinds of cumbersome environment configurations, vfox is the ideal choice for you.

Introduction

vfox is a cross-platform version manager(similar to nvm, fvm, sdkman, asdf-vm, etc.), extendable via plugins. It allows you to quickly install and switch between different environment you need via the command line.

Why use vfox?

• cross-platform support (Windows, Linux, macOS)
• consistent commands to manage all your languages
• supports different versions for different projects, different shells, and globally.
• simple plugin system to add support for your runtime of choice
• automatically switches runtime versions as you traverse your project
• support for existing config files .node-version, .nvmrc, .sdkmanrc for easy migration
• shell completion available for common shells (Bash, ZSH, Powershell, Clink)
• it's faster than asdf-vm, and offers more simple commands and genuine cross-platform unification. see Comparison with asdf

Demo

Quickstart

For detailed installation instructions, see Quick Start

1. Choose an installation that works for you.

2. ⚠️ Hook vfox into your shell (pick one that works for your shell) ⚠️

echo 'eval "$(vfox activate bash)"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'eval "$(vfox activate zsh)"' >> ~/.zshrc
echo 'vfox activate fish | source' >> ~/.config/fish/config.fish

# For PowerShell:
echo 'Invoke-Expression "$(vfox activate pwsh)"' >> $PROFILE

# For Clink:
# 1. Install clink: https://github.com/chrisant996/clink/releases
#    Or Install cmder: https://github.com/cmderdev/cmder/releases
# 2. Find script path: clink info | findstr scripts
# 3. copy internal/shell/clink_vfox.lua to script path

# For Nushell:
vfox activate nushell $nu.default-config-dir | save --append $nu.config-path

Remember to restart your shell to apply the changes.

3. Add an SDK plugin

$ vfox add nodejs

4. Install a runtime

$ vfox install nodejs@21.5.0

5. Switch runtime

$ vfox use nodejs@21.5.0
$ node -v
21.5.0

Full Documentation

See vfox.dev for full documentation.

Available Plugins

If you have installed vfox, you can view all available plugins with the vfox available command.

For more details, see the Available Plugins.

Contributors

Thanks to following people who contributed to this project. 🎉🎉🙏🙏

Contributing

Bug reports, contributions and forks are welcome. All bugs or other forms of discussion happen on issues.

See more at CONTRIBUTING.md.

Plugin Contributions, please go to Public Registry

Thanks

Thanks JetBrains for the free open source license. :)

COPYRIGHT

Apache 2.0 license - Copyright (C) 2025 Han Li and contributors