Installation

dvm ships as a single compiled binary, built for Linux, macOS and Windows. The install script downloads the one for your machine, checks it against a published checksum, and puts it in ~/.dvm/bin/dvm.

The install script#

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mrgnhnt96/dvm/main/install.sh | sh

That is the whole thing. It runs on a machine that has never had Dart on it, which is the machine a Dart version manager is most needed on: the script fetches a compiled binary, so dvm is ready before any SDK exists.

The script prints where it put the binary and what to do next:

Looking up the newest dvm release...
Downloading dvm-macos-arm64.zip (v0.2.0)...

dvm v0.2.0 is installed at /Users/you/.dvm/bin/dvm

Add this to your shell startup file (~/.zshrc, ~/.bashrc, ...):

  export PATH="/Users/you/.dvm/bin:$PATH"

Then start a new shell and run  dvm setup  to install the dart shim.

Do both of those. ~/.dvm/bin on PATH is what makes dvm runnable; dvm setup is the separate step that makes plain dart follow your project pins.

On Windows#

The curl script is what a POSIX shell runs, so Windows gets its binary straight from the release. Download dvm-windows-x64.zip from the releases page, unpack it, and put dvm.exe somewhere on your PATH — %USERPROFILE%\.dvm\bin keeps it beside everything else dvm writes. If you do run the script from Git Bash it points you here and stops, so you end up with a dvm that works either way.

From there every command is the same one you would type anywhere else. dvm setup writes dart.bat and hands you a PowerShell line that puts the shims on your user PATH; see On Windows for what that looks like.

What the script checks#

Three things have to hold before anything lands on disk, and the script names whichever one stopped it — so a run that finishes leaves you a working dvm:

• a published binary exists for your operating system and CPU architecture,
• the release asset is reachable (the GitHub API serves 60 requests an hour to each IP address, so a shared or busy address may need a short wait),
• the downloaded archive's SHA-256 matches the .sha256 published alongside it.

Environment variables#

# pin the installer itself, e.g. in a Dockerfile
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mrgnhnt96/dvm/main/install.sh | DVM_VERSION=0.2.0 sh

How dvm reaches your machine#

The install script above puts dvm on a new machine, and dvm update keeps it current from then on. Both fetch the same compiled binary from the same GitHub Release and check it against the same published checksum, so you get the same dvm either way.

That pairing works because a compiled binary needs nothing already installed — which is what a Dart version manager needs, since the language it manages is exactly what is missing when you arrive. See Updating dvm.

Verify it#

dvm --version
dvm doctor

dvm doctor is worth running now rather than later. On a fresh install it points you at the shims, which is the next page.

What is on disk now#

~/.dvm/
  bin/dvm          the binary you just installed

versions/, shims/ and config.json arrive as the commands that need them run.

Next steps#

Run dvm setup to install the dart shim, then follow the Quick Start.