Mimir

Odin's little toolchain.

Note

Still in heavy development.

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The idea

Odin doesn't have a package manager. It's not an accident, and it's not something I'm trying to "fix."

GingerBill, Odin's creator, has been pretty clear that Odin won't get one. The language stays deliberately small, and pulling in a whole ecosystem of dependency-management cruft kind of goes against that. The community leans on git for sharing code, and honestly, it works.

So Mimir is not a package manager. It never will be, and it says so proudly.

What Mimir is: a friendlier way to run the commands you'd run anyway. Mimir wraps the tools Odin already gives you — odin build and the like — into a unified workflow that feels natural to Odin developers.

Git is the source of truth. Mimir just holds the door open for you.

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Installation

There's a one-liner for each platform. Each grabs the latest release from GitHub, drops it on your system, and puts it on your PATH for you.

Linux / macOS (bash):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rivethorn/mimir/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

If you'd rather inspect it first, download the script and run it:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rivethorn/mimir/main/scripts/install.sh -o install-mimir.sh
bash install-mimir.sh

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rivethorn/mimir/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex

Open a fresh shell afterwards to pick up the PATH change — Mimir lands in ~/.mimir/bin (Linux/macOS) or %USERPROFILE%\.mimir\bin (Windows). The scripts are in the repo under scripts/ if you want to read them: install.sh and install.ps1.

Build from source

Prefer to build it yourself? You need Odin on your PATH plus git:

cd mimir
odin build src -collection:pkgs=pkgs -o:speed

Then put the mimir binary somewhere on your PATH. Done.

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The layout

Mimir has opinions, but they're simple ones. Every command works inside a project with:

my-project/
├── src/          # your code (must contain at least one .odin file)
├── pkgs/         # packages you've added, living right next to your code
├── bin/
│   ├── debug/    # debug builds land here
│   └── release/  # and release builds here
├── ols.json      # Mimir reads your collections from here
└── odinfmt.json

mimir new scaffolds all of this — including a git init — so you rarely have to think about it.

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Commands

Everything you can do, in one place:

command	what it does
mimir new <name>	Scaffold a fresh Odin project (src/, pkgs/, ols.json, git init — the works)
mimir build	Compile the current project into bin/
mimir run [-- args]	Build if needed, then run the project; pass arguments through with --
mimir install <repo>	Build a binary — the current project (.) or a remote one — and install it on your system
mimir uninstall <pkg>	Remove an installed binary from your system
mimir list	Show installed packages
mimir clean	Nuke bin/ and all build artifacts
mimir version	Tell you what version you're running
mimir help	Show this help from inside the terminal

Short aliases cover the common ones — mimir b for build, mimir r for run. Useful when your hands are already on the keyboard.

Options worth knowing

• -release on build and run compiles in release mode. Debug and release binaries stay separate, so one never clobbers the other.
• -silent on build and run quiets the chit-chat and lets your own output shine.
• -dry-run on uninstall and clean shows you exactly what would happen before anything does. Nice when you're not sure.
• -no-git on new skips the git init when you manage version control yourself.
• run is smart about it — it only rebuilds when your src/ files have actually changed since the last build. Otherwise it says "Already at latest change" and gets on with running.

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What a fresh start looks like

mimir new hello gives you a tiny main.odin that greets the world:

package main

import "core:fmt"

main :: proc() {
    fmt.println("Hellope!")
}

(Hellope is an Odin tradition. You'll get used to it. It grows on you.)

Because Mimir reads your ols.json for collections, adding a package and then importing it as pkgs:something just works — no hand-typed -collection flags.

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Current state

Every command is wired up and working: new, build, run, install, uninstall, list, clean, version, and help — each with its own -help. install builds straight into release mode and installs the binary on your system; uninstall takes it right back off.

The codebase uses the reflags package for consistent command-line parsing throughout, making the CLI clean and maintainable. Smart rebuild detection keeps iteration fast — changes to your src/ trigger rebuilds, but unchanged projects skip the rebuild step entirely.

It's still young, so expect a rough edge or two. Hit one? File it. It's appreciated in advance!

The project follows Odin conventions — src/ for your code, pkgs/ for everything else — and each internal package is cleanly separated so the language server (ols) can see them cleanly.

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Why it exists

Mimir was built out of love for Odin's stance: few moving parts, no ceremony, the tools you need and nothing you don't. The last thing it wants to become is a layer of abstraction that hides the actual work from you.

So Mimir stays honest. It wraps odin and git. It shares your ols.json. It puts packages in a normal folder you could manage by hand if you ever wanted to. If Mimir vanished tomorrow, you'd lose nothing — your code, your dependencies, and your repo would all still be right there.

It's not a package manager, and it never will be. It's just a kinder way to talk to the tools Odin already gives you.

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MIT licensed. Built with love and a little bit of Odin.