Homebrew Tap for memsh

April 11, 2026 · View on GitHub

This is the official Homebrew tap for memsh, a virtual bash shell implemented in Go with an in-memory filesystem.

Installation

brew tap amjadjibon/memsh
brew install memsh

Update

To upgrade to the latest version:

brew update
brew upgrade memsh

Uninstallation

brew uninstall memsh
brew untap amjadjibon/memsh

macOS Security Warning

When first running memsh on macOS, you may see this warning:

"Apple could not verify 'memsh' is free of malware" "Apple checked it for malicious software and none was detected"

This is Expected

This warning appears because memsh uses ad-hoc code signing for macOS binaries. The binary is safe to use - this is a false positive from macOS Gatekeeper.

How to Fix

Option 1: Right-click to Open (Recommended)

  1. Open Finder
  2. Navigate to /opt/homebrew/bin/ (or run which memsh to find the location)
  3. Right-click on memsh
  4. Select "Open"
  5. Click "Open" in the dialog
  6. The binary is now trusted and can be run from terminal

Option 2: Remove Quarantine Attribute

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine $(which memsh)

Option 3: Allow via System Settings

  1. Try to run memsh in terminal
  2. Click "Cancel" on the security warning
  3. Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security
  4. Find the message about memsh being blocked
  5. Click "Open Anyway"

After any of these steps, memsh will run normally without warnings.

Why This Happens

macOS requires apps to be:

  1. Code signed ✅ (we do this with ad-hoc signing)
  2. Notarized by Apple ❌ (requires paid Apple Developer account)

The memsh project uses ad-hoc signing to ensure compatibility with Apple Silicon, but does not yet participate in Apple's notarization program.

Verification

After installation, verify it's working:

memsh --version

Or run the interactive shell:

memsh

Documentation

For full documentation, usage examples, and API reference, visit:

Is it Safe?

Yes! memsh is open-source software:

You can verify the binary by:

  1. Checking the source code
  2. Building from source: go install github.com/amjadjibon/memsh@latest
  3. Comparing checksums on the releases page

Troubleshooting

"command not found: memsh"

Make sure Homebrew is in your PATH:

# For Intel Macs
export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"

# For Apple Silicon Macs
export PATH="/opt/homebrew/bin:$PATH"

Add this to your ~/.zshrc or ~/.bash_profile to make it permanent.

"memsh is damaged and can't be opened"

This means the quarantine attribute needs to be removed:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine $(which memsh)

Check installed version

brew info memsh

License

See the memsh license for details.