brew/Q/What does brew bundle dump do?

• What does brew bundle dump do?

  • AI Answer

    • Answer/Official from Homebrew Bundle README
    • Short answer: it writes the current machine's installed state (taps, formulae, casks, and other supported package managers) out to a brew/file, so that state can be captured, version-controlled, and diffed over time.
    • By default it writes ./Brewfile in the current directory, or a custom path via --file (--file=- pipes to stdout/stdin).
    • What it dumps, by default: taps, formulae (brew), and casks (cask). Each of these can be toggled independently with --formula/--no-formula, --cask/--no-cask, --tap/--no-tap.
    • It can also dump entries for several other package managers if present, each gated by a --no-dump-<manager> flag (or the matching HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_DUMP_NO_* env var): mas (Mac App Store), whalebrew, vscode extensions, Flatpak, WinGet, Krew plugins, and npm packages.
    • --describe (default on) adds a comment above each entry describing the package; --no-describe omits those comments.
    • -f/--force overwrites an existing Brewfile at the target path instead of erroring.
    • --global reads/writes the global Brewfile location ($HOMEBREW_BUNDLE_FILE_GLOBAL, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/homebrew/Brewfile, or ~/.Brewfile) instead of the current directory's.
    • --install runs brew bundle install first, so the dump reflects the post-install state.
    • It is effectively the inverse of brew bundle (a.k.a. brew bundle install), which reads a Brewfile and installs/updates the system to match it — dump goes system → Brewfile, install goes Brewfile → system.