Currently I’m running multiple versions of multiple runtimes on my machine, eg: OpenJDK 8, 14 then ruby 2.7.0 and NodeJS versions 8 and 12.

Normally for each one of them I would use a specific runtime version manager, for example for Java I would use sdkman, for ruby a couple years ago I replaced rvm with rbenv and for NodeJS I simply went with nvm.

The main pain of using 3 runtime managers is the need to learn their different CLIs and nuances; With rvm and rbenv you can choose a version of ruby per project by placing in the root of the folder a .ruby-version file stating the version to use, nvm also allowed this using .nvmrc and so on, but now this is water under the bridge.

Installing asdf-vm

Simply clone the asdf repository to your home has shown bellow

# Clone the latest branch
git clone https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf.git ~/.asdf
cd ~/.asdf
git checkout "$(git describe --abbrev=0 --tags)"

Shell integration

On a MacOS or *nix using bash edit your ~/.bash_profile

. $HOME/.asdf/asdf.sh
. $HOME/.asdf/completions/asdf.bash

If you are using zshell edit ~/.zshrc and add the following to the end of the file

# append completions to fpath
fpath=(${ASDF_DIR}/completions $fpath)
# initialise completions with ZSH's compinit
autoload -Uz compinit
compinit

Update

asdf update

Plugins

Plugins are how adsf understands how to handle different packages, meaning that if you wish to add to adsf the ability to handle java, python, mysql or even minikube you just need to install a plugin.

See the following page to view all available plugins.

Add

If the plugin exists in the plugin repository you can just add it by name, otherwise you need to add it providing it’s git repository url.

# asdf plugin add <name>
asdf plugin add java

# asdf plugin add <name> <git url>
asdf plugin-add kotlin https://github.com/asdf-community/asdf-kotlin.git

List installed

Listing installed plugins

asdf plugin list
# java
# maven
# nodejs
# python
# rust

Listing installed plugins with their repository url’s

asdf plugin list --urls
# java    https://github.com/halcyon/asdf-java.git
# maven   https://github.com/halcyon/asdf-maven.git
# nodejs  https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-nodejs.git
# python  https://github.com/danhper/asdf-python.git
# rust    https://github.com/code-lever/asdf-rust.git

Updating installed

You can update a specific plugin by name

asdf plugin update java
# Updating java...
# remote: Enumerating objects: 108, done.
# remote: Counting objects: 100% (108/108), done.
# remote: Compressing objects: 100% (64/64), done.
# remote: Total 289 (delta 67), reused 82 (delta 44), pack-reused 181
# Receiving objects: 100% (289/289), 192.46 KiB | 1.17 MiB/s, done.
# Resolving deltas: 100% (161/161), completed with 5 local objects.
# From https://github.com/halcyon/asdf-java
#   b050643..eedd04e  master     -> master
#   b050643..eedd04e  master     -> origin/master
# Already on 'master'
# Your branch is up to date with 'origin/master'.

Or update all plugins in one go

asdf plugin update --all

Remove

# asdf plugin remove <name>
asdf plugin remove kotlin

Versions

List all available versions

asdf list all <name>
# asdf list all java

Install

Installing a version is as simple as installing a plugin.

asdf install <name> <version>
# asdf install java adopt-openjdk-11.0.6+10_openj9-0.18.1

Install the lasted version of a stable version

asdf install <name> latest:<version>
asdf install java latest:11

List installed versions

asdf list <name>
# asdf list java

Filtering displayed versions

asdf list all <name> <version>
# asdf list all java openjdk-11

Set current version

You can set a specific plugin version globally, just in the current shell or per folder.

asdf global <name> <version>
asdf shell <name> <version>
asdf local <name> <version>
scope description
global writes the version to $HOME/.tools_versions, making the version global all shells
shell sets the version just for this shell, but setting ASDF_${LANG}_VERSION environment variable
local writes the version to the file .tools_versions on the current working directory

You can read more about the .tool-versions file here.

View current version

To view whats the current version of the installed plugins

asdf current
# java           adopt-openjdk-11.0.6+10_openj9-0.18.1 (set by /Users/lmm/.tool-versions)
# maven          3.5.4    (set by /Users/lmm/.tool-versions)
# nodejs         8.17.0 12.18.2 (set by /lmm/mendelui/.tool-versions)
# python         3.8.4    (set by /Users/lmm/.tool-versions)
# rust           1.45.0   (set by /Users/lmm/.tool-versions)

You can also view the version of a specific version

asdf current java
# adopt-openjdk-11.0.6+10_openj9-0.18.1 (set by /Users/mendelui/.tool-versions)

Uninstall

# asdf uninstall <name> <version>

asdf uninstall rust 1.45.0