asdf

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

25593 stars · 947 forks observed · 2026-10-08

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-10-12, confidence 0.99

asdf is a single command‑line interface that manages multiple language runtime versions per project. It is extensible through a large ecosystem of plugins for languages such as Ruby, Node.js, Elixir, Erlang and many more.

Use cases

• Switch between different Node.js versions for each project automatically.
• Maintain separate Ruby versions for legacy and new applications in the same workspace.
• Add support for a new language by installing a community plugin without writing custom scripts.
• Keep a single .tool-versions file in a repository to ensure reproducible builds across CI/CD pipelines.
• Migrate existing .nvmrc, .ruby-version, or .node-version files to asdf without manual conversion.

When to choose

• You need a unified tool to manage many language runtimes across projects.
• You prefer a plugin‑based architecture that can be extended to any language or tool.
• You want per‑directory version switching integrated with your shell.
• You require a solution that works on Linux, macOS, Windows and BSD with the same commands.

When to avoid

• You only work with a single language and already have a dedicated manager that meets all your needs.
• You need a graphical user interface for version management.
• Your workflow depends on IDE‑specific version handling that cannot be scripted via the CLI.

Facets

cli-tool · maturity active

cli plugin-system developer-tools windows bsd cross-platform cli version-manager runtime-management multi-language shell-integration dotfiles linux macos

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="asdf-vm/asdf")