curl-binary

Download standalone binary files directly from URLs. Unlike curl-tar, this method does not extract an archive — the downloaded file is the binary itself.

Basic Usage

import { defineTool } from "@alexgorbatchev/dotfiles";

export default defineTool((install) =>
  install("curl-binary", {
    url: "https://example.com/tool-v1.0.0-linux-amd64",
  }).bin("tool"),
);

Parameters

Parameter	Description
url	Required. Direct URL to the binary file
versionArgs	Arguments for version check (e.g., ['--version'])
versionRegex	Regex to extract version from output (string or RegExp)
env	Environment variables (static or dynamic function)

Examples

With Version Detection

install("curl-binary", {
  url: "https://example.com/tool-v1.0.0-linux-amd64",
  versionArgs: ["--version"],
  versionRegex: /v(\d+\.\d+\.\d+)/,
}).bin("tool");

With Shell Configuration

install("curl-binary", {
  url: "https://example.com/tool-v1.0.0-linux-amd64",
})
  .bin("tool")
  .zsh((shell) => shell.aliases({ t: "tool" }));

Platform-Specific URLs

import { Architecture, defineTool, Platform } from "@alexgorbatchev/dotfiles";

export default defineTool((install) =>
  install()
    .bin("tool")
    .platform(Platform.MacOS, Architecture.Arm64, (install) =>
      install("curl-binary", {
        url: "https://example.com/tool-darwin-arm64",
      }),
    )
    .platform(Platform.Linux, Architecture.X86_64, (install) =>
      install("curl-binary", {
        url: "https://example.com/tool-linux-amd64",
      }),
    ),
);

When to Use

• Direct binary file downloads (single executable, no archive)
• Tools that distribute platform-specific binaries as standalone files
• Single-file Go or Rust binaries provided as direct downloads

Prefer github-release when GitHub releases are available. Prefer curl-tar when the download is an archive.