Glossary
The vocabulary of package management, and the terms that come up when working with stout. Because stout is a drop-in Homebrew replacement, most concepts carry over directly.
- Bottle
- A pre-compiled binary package. stout and Homebrew both install bottles rather than building from source when one is available for your platform.
- Cellar
- The directory where installed packages live (e.g. /opt/homebrew/Cellar). stout writes the same layout so both tools can manage the same installations.
- Formula
- The definition of how to install a command-line package — its source, dependencies, and build steps. stout reads the same formulae as Homebrew.
- Cask
- A definition for installing a GUI application (macOS .app), AppImage, or Flatpak. stout supports casks on both macOS and Linux.
- Tap
- A third-party repository of extra formulae and casks. stout uses the same taps you already have.
- Brewfile
- A manifest listing the packages, casks, and taps to install. `stout bundle` reads Homebrew-compatible Brewfiles for reproducible setups.
- INSTALL_RECEIPT.json
- A metadata file written into the Cellar recording how a package was installed. stout writes a Homebrew-compatible receipt so the two tools interoperate.
- FTS5
- SQLite's full-text search extension. stout uses it to search its local package index in under 50ms, entirely offline.
- Tokio
- The asynchronous runtime for Rust that powers stout's parallel, resumable bottle downloads.
- Multi-prefix
- Running isolated package sets under different install prefixes so projects with conflicting versions never collide.
- Lock file
- A file pinning exact package versions and checksums so a setup resolves identically on every machine — the basis of reproducible builds.
- Ed25519
- The elliptic-curve signature scheme stout uses to sign and verify index updates, establishing a chain of trust from index build to your machine.
- Air-gapped
- A network with no internet access. stout supports air-gapped installs via local mirrors served over HTTP with signed, verifiable updates.
Want the bigger picture? See how stout works, the full feature list, or why stout.