# landley/toybox

toybox

Repository: https://github.com/landley/toybox
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/toybox
Homepage: http://landley.net/toybox
Language: C
License: 0BSD
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-06-23T02:45:59+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 72/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 89, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5321, "days_push": 71, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3138, forks 411 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:45.768509+00:00)

## What it is
Toybox combines many common Linux command line utilities (cp, mv, cat, etc.) into a single small, fast, BSD-licensed multicall binary that is reasonably POSIX-2008 and LSB 4.1 compliant. It ships in Android since Marshmallow and aims to provide the userland portion of a minimal self-hosting Linux system.

## Use cases
- replace busybox in an embedded linux root filesystem
- build a minimal self-hosting linux system from source
- provide command line utilities on android
- create a small static binary with common unix commands
- build a reproducible minimal base system for linux from scratch
- cross-compile coreutils for arm or other embedded targets

## When to choose
- you need a small, permissively licensed (0BSD) set of standard command line utilities
- you are building embedded linux systems, initramfs images, or android tooling
- you want a busybox alternative with cleaner licensing and POSIX compliance

## When to avoid
- you need the full feature set of GNU coreutils and shell utilities
- you rely on GNU-specific extensions or long options of standard tools
- you need a mature, widely audited busybox replacement for production routers where busybox is the norm

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: cli, developer-tools, file-system
- domain: operating-systems, embedded-systems, developer-tools
- platform: embedded, cli, cross-platform
- tags: coreutils, busybox-alternative, multicall-binary, posix, 0bsd, minimal-linux, command-line, linux, android

## Member repositories
- landley/toybox (main) score 72

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:45.768509+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 2026-08-30T07:26:03.846840+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/landley/toybox (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:45.768509+00:00, sha 0ab3175ffc7b)
  - homepage: http://landley.net/toybox (fetched 2026-08-29T09:40:50.089415+00:00, sha eb5a5c11be67)
  - site_page: http://landley.net/toybox/about.html (fetched 2026-08-29T09:40:50.092416+00:00, sha 592faf70c0c1)
  - site_page: http://landley.net/aboriginal/about.html (fetched 2026-08-29T09:40:50.097883+00:00, sha d1aaef3e2eb4)
  - site_page: http://landley.net/toybox/faq.html (fetched 2026-08-29T09:40:50.094630+00:00, sha a4deaa192fc1)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.