Packages has been deprecated in Homebrew

[lsh246]

Packages has unfortunately been deprecated in Homebrew. When I try to install it using Brew, I get this message:

Error: Cask 'packages' has been disabled because it no longer meets the criteria for acceptable casks! It was disabled on 2025-12-23.

Here is the page for it on the Homebrew site:

https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/packages

[packagesdev]

It looks that the unmet requirement is to use https. This is not going to happen in the near future.

[lsh246]

I wonder if we could fix this by creating a free GitHub Pages site that does nothing but hosts the downloads, and has an about page which is just a link to the real about page. Seems like a free and easy fix, but it would require the overhead of uploading new versions to two sites.

https://docs.github.com/en/pages

[gdams]

I wonder if we could fix this by creating a free GitHub Pages site that does nothing but hosts the downloads, and has an about page which is just a link to the real about page. Seems like a free and easy fix, but it would require the overhead of uploading new versions to two sites.

https://docs.github.com/en/pages

It wouldn't even need that, it just needs the installer to be published as a GitHub release which is automatically served over https via the GH releases CDN

[lsh246]

FWIW, we've replaced a single line that installs packages using brew to all this in our ADO pipeline. Works, but UG-ly.

   - task: Cache@2
     displayName: Cache Packages.dmg
     inputs:
        key: packages-dmg-v1
        path: $(Pipeline.Workspace)/packages

   - bash: |
        set -e

        mkdir -p "$(Pipeline.Workspace)/packages"

        DMG_PATH="$(Pipeline.Workspace)/packages/Packages.dmg"

        if [ ! -f "$DMG_PATH" ]; then
          echo "Downloading Packages.dmg"
          curl -L \
            http://s.sudre.free.fr/Software/files/Packages.dmg \
            -o "$DMG_PATH"
        else
          echo "Packages.dmg restored from cache"
        fi
     displayName: Download Packages.dmg if needed
     continueOnError: false

   - bash: |
        set -e

        DMG_PATH="$(Pipeline.Workspace)/packages/Packages.dmg"
        MOUNT_POINT="$(Pipeline.Workspace)/packages/mount"

        mkdir -p "$MOUNT_POINT"

        echo "Mounting dmg"
        hdiutil attach "$DMG_PATH" \
          -mountpoint "$MOUNT_POINT" \
          -nobrowse \
          -quiet

        PKG_PATH="$MOUNT_POINT/Install Packages.pkg"

        if [ ! -f "$PKG_PATH" ]; then
          echo "ERROR: Install Packages.pkg not found"
          exit 1
        fi

        echo "Running installer"
        sudo installer -pkg "$PKG_PATH" -target /

        echo "Installation complete"
     displayName: Install Packages

   - bash: |
        hdiutil detach "$(Pipeline.Workspace)/packages/mount" -quiet || true
     displayName: Unmount Packages.dmg

   - bash: |
        set -euo pipefail

        echo "Locating packagesbuild"
        which packagesbuild

        echo "Reading packagesbuild version"
        VERSION="$(packagesbuild --version | awk '{print $NF}')"

        if [ -z "$VERSION" ]; then
          echo "ERROR: packagesbuild did not output a version"
          exit 1
        fi

        echo "packagesbuild version: $VERSION"
     displayName: Verify packagesbuild CLI exists

[DanielRudrich]

I wonder if we could fix this by creating a free GitHub Pages site that does nothing but hosts the downloads, and has an about page which is just a link to the real about page. Seems like a free and easy fix, but it would require the overhead of uploading new versions to two sites.
https://docs.github.com/en/pages

It wouldn't even need that, it just needs the installer to be published as a GitHub release which is automatically served over https via the GH releases CDN

@packagesdev Would you be willing to upload the binaries to the github releases? I think this would be the quickest way to bring packages back to homebrew. The current brew version seems to be this one: https://github.com/packagesdev/packages/releases/tag/v1.2.10

[packagesdev]

I wonder if we could fix this by creating a free GitHub Pages site that does nothing but hosts the downloads, and has an about page which is just a link to the real about page. Seems like a free and easy fix, but it would require the overhead of uploading new versions to two sites.
https://docs.github.com/en/pages

It wouldn't even need that, it just needs the installer to be published as a GitHub release which is automatically served over https via the GH releases CDN

@packagesdev Would you be willing to upload the binaries to the github releases? I think this would be the quickest way to bring packages back to homebrew. The current brew version seems to be this one: https://github.com/packagesdev/packages/releases/tag/v1.2.10

Done.

[gdams]

I've raised Homebrew/homebrew-cask#244326 to renenable this cask but the Homebrew team are asking that either the download URL on the website is updated to use this GitHub releases URL or that the URL to this repo is added to the website in order to validate that these projects are connected.

[DanielRudrich]

🎉 I can confirm that packages is back!

GitHub-hosted runners seem to require a brew update before installing it, but even that should be gone soon.

Thanks everyone!

[lsh246]

Thank you @DanielRudrich and @gdams for your work on this! And of course @packagesdev for creating and maintaining this project.

[pcgeek86]

Why's this automatically (I think?) happening for packages that probably should not be deprecated?

https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/session-manager-plugin#default