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Introduction

Introduction

Quiver is an extremely fast Nu project and package manager. It installs Nu modules and plugins distributed as git repositories. It handles dependency resolution, fetching, lockfiles, and project-local environment setup for Nushell projects.

Getting Started
Installation
Commands
Manifest and Lockfile
Environment and Activation
Global Config
Security
Architecture

What Quiver Does

Quiver takes inspiration from tools like uv for Python and creates a similar experience for managing Nu projects and modules.

  • Supports specifying a specific version of Nu for a project, managing both the installation and loading the environment with that version of Nu
  • Resolves module and plugin dependencies from git repositories
  • Installs dependencies into a project-local .nu-env/ environment
  • Writes quiver.lock with pinned revisions and checksums for reproducible environments
  • Reuses shared caches so repeated installs are fast
  • Simply qv run on a script in your package to run it with the full environment or enter the environment shell with qv run nu with plugins and modules ready to use
  • Generates shell and editor integration for Nushell workflows

Install

Install a released build with one of these options:

brew install freepicheep/tap/quiver
mise use -g github:freepicheep/quiver
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/freepicheep/quiver/releases/latest/download/quiver-installer.sh | sh

Or build from source:

cargo install --git https://github.com/freepicheep/quiver

Quick Start 

mkdir my-project
cd my-project

# initialize the project, optionally specifying the version of Nu
qv init --nu-version ">=0.111.0"

# add modules from GitHub repos (or full url for any git provider)
qv add freepicheep/nu-salesforce

# add plugins, including core plugins
qv add-plugin polars

# install everything and enter the shell with everything ready to use
qv install

# run a specific script in your project
qv run my-project/reformat_accounts.nu

# or enter the Nu REPL with your project's dependencies ready to use
qv run nu

How It Works

A Quiver project centers around these files:

  • nupackage.toml declares package metadata and dependencies
  • .nu-env/ contains the generated local environment
  • quiver.lock pins exact commits and checksums

Running qv init or qv install prepares a local environment that looks like this:

.nu-env/
├── activate.nu
├── config.nu
├── plugins.msgpackz
├── bin/
│   └── nu
└── modules/

Quiver also keeps shared installs outside the project in the quiver store so multiple repos can reuse the same git cache, plugin binaries, and Nushell versions.

Next Pages

If you are new to Quiver, continue with Getting Started. If you need help with the file formats, go to Manifest and Lockfile. If you want implementation details, go to Architecture.