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Checkers
Homebrew Update Notifications - Monitor Formulae & Cask Updates

Homebrew Update Notifications - Monitor Formulae & Cask Updates

Update-Watcher’s Homebrew checker monitors installed Homebrew formulae and casks for available updates. It covers both command-line tools installed as formulae and GUI applications installed as casks, giving you a complete picture of outdated Homebrew packages.

The setup wizard auto-detects Homebrew and offers to enable this checker on macOS and Linux systems where brew is installed.

Prerequisites

  • Homebrew installed on macOS or Linux.
  • The brew command accessible from the user running Update-Watcher.

Adding via CLI

Add a Homebrew watcher:

Terminal
update-watcher watch homebrew

Exclude casks and only check formulae:

Terminal
update-watcher watch homebrew --no-casks

Configuration Reference

OptionTypeDefaultDescription
include_casksbooltrueAlso check for outdated casks (GUI applications). Set to false to only monitor formulae.

YAML Configuration Example

Basic Homebrew configuration (formulae and casks):

config.yaml
watchers:
  - type: homebrew

Formulae only (no casks):

config.yaml
watchers:
  - type: homebrew
    include_casks: false

Combined with the macOS checker for complete coverage:

config.yaml
watchers:
  - type: macos
  - type: homebrew
    include_casks: true

How It Works

The Homebrew checker performs the following steps:

Step 1: Update Homebrew

Runs brew update to fetch the latest formulae and cask definitions from the Homebrew taps.

Step 2: Check outdated formulae

Runs brew outdated --json to list all installed formulae with available updates. The JSON output provides package name, installed version, and available version.

Step 3: Check outdated casks (if enabled)

Runs brew outdated --cask --json to list all installed casks with available updates.

The checker reports each outdated package with the name, installed version, available version, and whether it is a formula or a cask.

Tips

💡

Homebrew on Linux: Homebrew also works on Linux (known as Linuxbrew). The checker operates identically on Linux, though cask support is limited on Linux since most casks are macOS GUI applications.

Auto-Update Interference: Homebrew has a built-in auto-update feature that runs periodically when you use brew commands. This does not interfere with Update-Watcher – the checker simply reads the current state of outdated packages after ensuring the latest definitions are fetched.

Large Numbers of Outdated Packages: If you have many Homebrew packages installed and rarely update them, the checker may report a large list. Consider running brew upgrade periodically or filtering the notification output to focus on specific packages you care about.

Related

Send Homebrew update notifications to Slack, Discord, Email, Telegram, or any of the other 16 supported notification channels.

macOS Update Notifications - Monitor macOS Software Updatesnpm Global Update Notifications - Monitor Globally Installed npm Packages