Module 03 — Homebrew

🎯 Goal: Install Homebrew and use it to install your first tools. ⏱️ Time: ~1 hour.

What is Homebrew?

Homebrew is the "app store for the terminal." Instead of going to a website, downloading a file, and dragging it to Applications, you type one command and Homebrew fetches and installs the software for you.

You'll use it to install almost everything else in this course: Git, VS Code, uv, Node.js. Install it once; benefit forever.

The command you'll use is brew. (Homebrew → brew. Cute.)

Install Homebrew

1. Open Ghostty.

2. Go to https://brew.sh in your browser. At the top is an install command. It looks like this (copy it from the website to be sure it's current):

   /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
   

3. Paste it into Ghostty and press Enter.

4. It will explain what it's about to do and ask you to press Enter to continue. It may ask for your Mac login password — type it (you won't see characters appear; that's normal for password fields) and press Enter.

5. Wait. It downloads a fair bit. Grab a coffee.

Corporate laptop note: If this fails with permission errors, that's your IT restrictions kicking in — this is exactly what Module 01's email was for. Don't fight it; loop in IT.

One extra step (add brew to your PATH)

When Homebrew finishes, it often prints a message saying "Next steps" with two commands to run, to add brew to your "PATH" (so the terminal can find it). Copy those two lines from your screen and run them — they're tailored to your Mac. On Apple Silicon Macs the path is /opt/homebrew/...; on older Intel Macs it's /usr/local/.... Either way, just run exactly what Homebrew printed. They look like:

echo >> /Users/yourname/.zprofile
echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> /Users/yourname/.zprofile
eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

Then close Ghostty completely and reopen it. This is important — it makes the brew command available.

Confirm it worked

In a fresh Ghostty window:

brew --version

If it prints something like Homebrew 4.x.x, you're in business. 🎉

If it says command not found: brew, the PATH step above didn't take — see Troubleshooting.

How to use Homebrew (the 5 commands you need)

install vs install --cask: Command-line tools (like git) use plain brew install. Full Mac apps with a window (like VS Code) use brew install --cask. If you use the wrong one, Homebrew usually tells you which to use. No harm done.

Hands-on: install your first real tool with Homebrew

We need Git anyway (Module 05), so let's install it now and feel the magic:

brew install git

Watch it download and install. Then confirm:

git --version

It prints a version number. You just installed software by typing one line. That's the whole point of Homebrew. From here on, "install X" usually means "run brew install x."

A note on patience and trust

Homebrew commands sometimes take a minute and print a lot of text — download progress, warnings, "pouring" messages. This is all normal. You don't need to read it. Wait for the prompt (%) to come back, which means it's finished and ready for your next command.

If you ever can't tell whether it finished or got stuck, that's a perfect thing to ask Claude Code later: "is Homebrew still installing or did it freeze?"

✅ You're done with this module when

• brew --version prints a version number.
• You successfully ran brew install git.
• You understand the difference between brew install and brew install --cask.
• You're no longer afraid of a screen full of scrolling text.

If a box isn't checked yet: see Troubleshooting — especially brew: command not found and "permission denied" — or paste the error into Claude Code once it's set up. A blocked install? Back to Module 01 and loop in IT.

Next: Module 04 — VS Code.