Introducing Voli: A Fast, No-Admin Package Manager for Windows

⚡🐻 Introducing Voli: A Fast, No-Admin Package Manager for Windows

Hey DEV community!

I’m excited to share something I’ve been building: Voli.

It’s a package manager for Windows that finally does what most of us actually want:

• No admin rights
• No registry mess
• No install scripts (ever)
• Clean uninstalls that leave zero trace
• One static binary

The Problem

Windows package managers usually force you into one of these compromises:

• Scoop – great, but still runs scripts and can leave stuff behind
• Chocolatey / winget – almost always wants admin and happily executes whatever the package author put in the installer
• Everything else – either slow, bloated, or both

I wanted something that feels closer to cargo install or npm in spirit, but for actual Windows tools and that never asks for elevation.

What Voli Guarantees (these are never violated)

1. Never requires admin
   
   Everything lives in your user profile. No HKLM, no Program Files.

2. Zero-trace uninstall
   
   voli uninstall <pkg> removes the directory, shims, environment variables, and PATH entries. Nothing left behind. This is enforced by a local ledger, not by hope.

3. No scripts, ever
   
   Install = download → verify SHA-256 → extract → create shim → (optional, consented) env vars.
   
   A package cannot run code on your machine.

4. Everything is pinned & verified
   
   Artifacts are SHA-256 checked. The package index is Ed25519-signed.

How it works under the hood

• Only portable archives (zip, etc.) — no MSI/EXE installers
• Apps live in versioned directories
• A single user-level PATH entry points to the current version via a junction
• Upgrades are an atomic flip of that junction → running programs keep working
• The index is a tiny (~250 KB) signed SQLite snapshot, not a git clone

Try it (one line, no admin)

iwr -useb volibear.dev/install | iex

Then:

voli install ripgrep fd fzf
voli search regex
voli upgrade --all
voli uninstall ripgrep   # zero residue

Current status

Early development.

Don’t put it in production pipelines just yet — but if you want a clean, script-free package manager for your daily usage, it’s already usable.

Links

• Website: https://volibear.dev/
• GitHub: https://github.com/Topurrra/voli
• Registry: https://github.com/Topurrra/voli-registry

Would love feedback, bug reports, or package suggestions. Star the repo if this is something you’ve been wishing for on Windows!

Thanks for reading and happy packing ⚡🐻