Getting Started

Welcome to UniRTM! UniRTM is a universal runtime manager written in pure Go. It serves as a polyglot tool manager, an environment variable loader, and a task runner.

If you have used tools like asdf, mise, nvm, pyenv, or rbenv, you will feel right at home—but with significantly better performance and built-in security features.

Why UniRTM?

1. Lightning Fast: Written in Go, it avoids the slow startup times of Bash/Ruby-based tools.
2. Secure by Default: Integrates with Trivy, Syft, and Gitleaks to scan your tools and environments for vulnerabilities and secrets.
3. Cross-Platform: Windows, macOS, and Linux are all treated as first-class citizens.
4. All-in-One: Replaces your tool manager, .env loaders (like direnv), and task runners (like make).

1. Install UniRTM

The easiest way to install UniRTM is via our installation script:

curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/snowdreamtech/UniRTM/main/install.sh | bash

For more installation methods (Homebrew, Cargo, APT), see Installing UniRTM.

2. Hook into your Shell

For UniRTM to magically switch your tools and environments when you cd into a directory, it needs to hook into your shell.

# For Zsh
echo 'eval "$(unirtm env --shell zsh)"' >> ~/.zshrc

# For Bash
echo 'eval "$(unirtm env --shell bash)"' >> ~/.bashrc

Restart your terminal for the changes to take effect.

3. Install your first tools

Navigate to your project directory and declare the tools you need.

$ unirtm use node@20 python@3.11 go@1.22
✓ wrote .unirtm.toml

$ unirtm install
✓ installed 3 tools

You can verify they are active:

$ node -v
v20.x.x
$ go version
go version go1.22.x

4. Setup Environment Variables

Create a .env file in your project:

echo "DATABASE_URL=postgres://localhost:5432/mydb" > .env

UniRTM automatically loads these variables when you enter the directory and unloads them when you leave.

5. Define Tasks

Open your .unirtm.toml and add a task:

[tasks.test]
description = "Run the test suite"
run = "go test ./..."

Run it with:

unirtm run test

Next Steps

• Take the Full Walkthrough to explore advanced features.
• Learn about The .unirtm.toml File.
• Dive into Tasks.