Using Mise for managing multiple versions of software

This is a living document. I'll be updating as soon as I improve my setup.

I used to use asdf on my Mac OS X to manage different software versions across my projects, but I was constantly having problems due to various issues.

My manager, Yousif, has recommended a tool that he has been using on a lot of projects at Gruntwork, including Terragrunt: https://github.com/gruntwork-io/terragrunt/blob/main/mise.toml

I've been using it for a few days, and my experience is way better than using asdf so far. I'm writing this guide to help others, but also to remind myself of my own setup.

Installation

Mise is available in different package managers, but I chose to set up with their own required shell script:

curl https://mise.run | sh

I've previously installed mise with homebrew, but I decided to change the setup because installing with Homebrew doesn't allow me to use mise self-update to update mise's version.

Integration with Zsh

After mise is installed, it's suggested to add it to your shell configuration profile.

There's one line added to my ~/.zshrc file to activate mise:

eval "$(/Users/diogenesaherminio/.local/bin/mise activate zsh)"

Integration with VSCode

I'm using this excellent VSCode extension for the whole integration with my Go environment: https://hverlin.github.io/mise-vscode/guides/golang/

What does that mean? You create one mise.toml at the root of the project, similar to this one:

[tools]
go = "1.25.0"
golangci-lint = "2.4.0"
"go:github.com/goph/licensei/cmd/licensei" = "v0.9.0"
"go:go.uber.org/mock/mockgen" = "v0.6.0"
"go:golang.org/x/tools/gopls" = "v0.20.0"

And then all the Go binaries, such as goimports, are set up for both my terminal and VSCode.

What if there's no mise.toml in the folder you're in?

mise offers a possibility to have global defaults for the tool you're trying to use. To use them, you need to run (using go as an example):

mise use -g go@1.25

This will make the go binary available to your terminal globally, but the specific version required by your project will be used if you're in any folder of that project.

This configuration is saved at ~/.config/mise/config.toml :

cat ~/.config/mise/config.toml
[tools]
go = "1.25"