Parm
Install GitHub releases just like your favorite package manager
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Hi all, I built a CLI tool that allows you to seamlessly install software from GitHub release assets, similar to how your system's package manager installs software.It works by exploiting common patterns among GitHub releases across different open-source software such as naming conventions and file layouts to fetch proper release assets for your system and then downloading the proper asset onto your machine via the GitHub API. Parm will then extract the files, find the proper binaries, and then add them to your PATH. Parm can also check for updates and uninstall software, and otherwise manages the entire lifecycle of all software installed by Parm.Parm is not meant to replace your system's package manager. It is instead meant as an alternative method to install prebuilt software off of GitHub in a more centralized and simpler way.It's currently in a pre-release stage, and there's a lot of features I want to add. I'm currently working (very slowly) on some new features, so if this sounds interesting to you, check it out! It's completely free and open-source and is currently released for Linux/macOS. I would appreciate any feedback.Link: https://github.com/yhoundz/parm
HN · launched Nov 26, 2025 · 7 upvotes (top 62%) · 0 views
Niche: software package managers · 51 launches, 1 in the last 7 days ▼ -89% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Dev tools
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 51 launches in software package managers →
Could you build this?
Yes This is a straightforward CLI tool in Go or Python that parses GitHub Release APIs, matches OS/architecture asset patterns using regex heuristics, downloads the archive, and extracts executables to the system path.
Discussion
2 comments analyzed.
Concerns raised: Manual GitHub release visits required without list commands, Unsupported self-installation with Parm
Feature requests: Command to list releases for a repo, Command to list release info, Interactive menu to pick release and asset from list, Shell autocompletion for asset names and release tags
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 261 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #142 of 262 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 19 days after the earliest competitor.
- GitHubPlay · ph · 2026-10-27 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.51
- .github · github · 2026-10-09 · 27 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- .github · github · 2026-10-12 · 12 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- .github · github · 2026-10-26 · 529 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- .github · github · 2026-11-08 · 13 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- codex-cli-dev.github.io · github · 2026-09-21 · 16 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- ObtainHub-resp · github · 2026-11-05 · 59 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- Gitdot · hn · 2026-06-08 · 334 upvotes · similarity 0.42
The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.