# burrito-elixir/burrito

Wrap your application in a BEAM Burrito!

Repository: https://github.com/burrito-elixir/burrito
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/burrito
Language: C
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: elixir, distribution, packaging-tool, beam
Last push: 2026-07-24T15:18:07+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 82/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 94, release rhythm 55, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 1772, "days_push": 40, "days_rel": 303, "gap_med": 0, "n_releases_24m": 6}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1423, forks 68 (observed 2026-08-28T04:04:41.243496+00:00)

## What it is
Burrito is a packaging tool that wraps Elixir Mix projects into self-extracting, cross-platform executables for Windows, macOS, and Linux, bundling the BEAM runtime (ERTS) and compiled NIFs. It is inspired by Bakeware and implemented with Zig, supporting plugin hooks for boot-sequence customization like auto-updates.

## Use cases
- distribute an elixir cli app without requiring erlang installed
- package a mix project into a single executable for windows macos and linux
- cross-compile elixir nifs from one ci build server
- ship on-premise cli tooling to customer environments
- bundle erts with my elixir application
- auto-update a packaged elixir binary

## When to choose
- you need to distribute Elixir CLI tools to machines without Erlang/Elixir installed
- you must support Windows, macOS, and Linux targets from a single build pipeline
- your project uses elixir_make NIFs that need cross-compilation
- you want self-extracting binaries with automatic old-version cleanup

## When to avoid
- you are deploying Phoenix/web apps to servers where you control the runtime (use standard mix releases)
- you need a fully mature, battle-tested solution and cannot tolerate experimental edge cases
- you target platforms or OTP versions outside the supported pre-compiled range and cannot build custom ERTS
- you only deploy within environments that already have the BEAM installed

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: deployment, build-tool, cli
- domain: developer-tools, cross-platform
- platform: windows, elixir, cli
- tags: elixir, mix-release, self-extracting-archive, zig, erts-bundling, cross-compilation, nif, beam, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- burrito-elixir/burrito (main) score 82

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:41.243496+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T04:37:38.705900+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/burrito-elixir/burrito (fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:41.243496+00:00, sha 2047998208aa)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.