straight.el

The straightforward package manager for Emacs. Download and run packages directly from source. Jump straight to package code and hack away with no manual rebuilds required.

Put it in your init-file

Add the following code to initialize the package management system:

(let ((repos-dir (concat user-emacs-directory "straight/repos/")))
  (unless (file-exists-p (concat repos-dir "straight.el"))
    (make-directory repos-dir 'parents)
    (message "Cloning repository \"straight.el\"...")
    (unless (= 0 (call-process
                  "git" nil nil nil "clone" "--recursive"
                  "https://github.com/raxod502/straight.el.git"
                  (expand-file-name
                   (concat repos-dir "straight.el"))))
      (error "Could not clone straight.el"))
    (message "Cloning repository \"straight.el\"...done"))
  (load (concat repos-dir "straight.el/bootstrap.el")
        nil 'nomessage))

To improve efficiency, put the following code somewhere it is guaranteed to be run every time your init-file is loaded, even if there is an error:

(straight-declare-init-finished)

To gain access to additional features, put the following code at the end of your init-file, so it is only run if init finishes without errors:

(straight-declare-init-succeeded)

Install packages

straight.el has out-of-the-box support for MELPA, GNU ELPA, and Emacsmirror. Any package from those repositories can be installed and activated immediately by adding a straight-use-package form to your init-file and evaluating it (C-M-x or C-x C-e):

(straight-use-package 'cider)          ; from MELPA
(straight-use-package 'seq)            ; only available on GNU ELPA
(straight-use-package 'a2ps-multibyte) ; only available from Emacsmirror

To install a package temporarily, run M-x straight-use-package and select a package from the list.

But what about my fork of (random package)?

straight.el makes it trivial to hack on packages. If you have your own fork of projectile on Github, specify it like this (yes, it's a MELPA recipe, and you can check out existing recipes with M-x straight-get-recipe and friends):

(straight-use-package '(projectile :fetcher github
                                   :repo "your-name/projectile"))

Evaluating this won't overwrite the existing repository, if you already installed Projectile -- straight.el never messes with your code. To switch to your fork, all you have to do is add a remote directly to the Git repository:

~/.emacs.d/straight/repos/projectile

straight.el allows you to freely commit and branch in your package's Git repositories.

Integration with use-package

straight.el comes with out-of-the-box integration with use-package. First, install use-package:

(straight-use-package 'use-package)

Now :ensure will automatically use straight.el:

(use-package projectile
  :ensure t)

You can provide a recipe via the :recipe keyword:

(use-package projectile
  :ensure t
  :recipe (:fetcher github
           :repo "your-name/projectile"))

Specifying :ensure is unnecessary if you add this configuration:

(setq use-package-always-ensure t)

straight.el is a drop-in replacement for quelpa-use-package. Simply replace :quelpa with :recipe. It also has support for use-package deferred installation with :defer-install.

Update packages

To update your packages, simply run M-x straight-update-package or M-x straight-update-all.

straight.el aims to allow complete reproducibility for your configuration. To export the versions of all packages in use, run M-x straight-freeze-versions. To revert to the versions listed in the exported file, run M-x straight-thaw-versions. (In future, straight.el will automatically checkout the listed versions of packages when you run your config on a fresh machine. Coming Soon™)