What is it?

• Like asdf (or nvm or pyenv but for any language) it manages dev tools like node, python, cmake, terraform, and hundreds more.
• Like direnv it manages environment variables for different project directories.
• Like make it manages tasks used to build and test projects.

Demo

The following demo shows how to install and use mise to manage multiple versions of node on the same system. Note that calling which node gives us a real path to node, not a shim.

It also shows that you can use mise to install and many other tools such as jq, terraform, or go.

See demo transcript.

Quickstart

Install mise

See Getting started for more options.

$ curl https://mise.run | sh
$ ~/.local/bin/mise --version
              _                                        __
   ____ ___  (_)_______        ___  ____        ____  / /___ _________
  / __ `__ \/ / ___/ _ \______/ _ \/ __ \______/ __ \/ / __ `/ ___/ _ \
 / / / / / / (__  )  __/_____/  __/ / / /_____/ /_/ / / /_/ / /__/  __/
/_/ /_/ /_/_/____/\___/      \___/_/ /_/     / .___/_/\__,_/\___/\___/
                                            /_/                 by @jdx
2026.4.15 macos-arm64 (2026-04-16)

Hook mise into your shell (pick the right one for your shell):

# note this assumes mise is located at ~/.local/bin/mise
# which is what https://mise.run does by default
echo 'eval "$(~/.local/bin/mise activate bash)"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'eval "$(~/.local/bin/mise activate zsh)"' >> ~/.zshrc
echo '~/.local/bin/mise activate fish | source' >> ~/.config/fish/config.fish
echo '~/.local/bin/mise activate pwsh | Out-String | Invoke-Expression' >> ~/.config/powershell/Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1

Execute commands with specific tools

$ mise exec node@26 -- node -v
mise node@26.x.x ✓ installed
v26.x.x

Install tools

$ mise use --global node@26 go@1
$ node -v
v26.x.x
$ go version
go version go1.x.x macos/arm64

See dev tools for more examples.

Manage environment variables

# mise.toml
[env]
SOME_VAR = "foo"

$ mise set SOME_VAR=bar
$ echo $SOME_VAR
bar

Note that mise can also load .env files.

Run tasks

# mise.toml
[tasks.build]
description = "build the project"
run = "echo building..."

$ mise run build
building...

See tasks for more information.

Example mise project

Here is a combined example to give you an idea of how you can use mise to manage your a project’s tools, environment, and tasks.

# mise.toml
[tools]
terraform = "1"
aws-cli = "2"

[env]
TF_WORKSPACE = "development"
AWS_REGION = "us-west-2"
AWS_PROFILE = "dev"

[tasks.plan]
description = "Run terraform plan with configured workspace"
run = """
terraform init
terraform workspace select $TF_WORKSPACE
terraform plan
"""

[tasks.validate]
description = "Validate AWS credentials and terraform config"
run = """
aws sts get-caller-identity
terraform validate
"""

[tasks.deploy]
description = "Deploy infrastructure after validation"
depends = ["validate", "plan"]
run = "terraform apply -auto-approve"

Run it with:

mise install # install tools specified in mise.toml
mise run deploy

Find more examples in the mise cookbook.

Full Documentation

See mise.jdx.dev

GitHub Issues & Discussions

Due to the volume of issue submissions mise received, using GitHub Issues became unsustainable for the project. Instead, mise uses GitHub Discussions which provide a more community-centric platform for communication and require less management on the part of the maintainers.

Please note the following discussion categories, which match how issues are often used:

• Announcements
• Ideas: for feature requests, etc.
• Troubleshooting & Bug Reports

Special Thanks

We’re grateful for Cloudflare’s support through Project Alexandria.

Contributors