What the heck is /pkg? | Hacker News Reader

What the heck is /pkg?

anderegg.ca

80 pointsGavinAnderegg18 comments

> "Turns out, this is part of macOS 27.0…"

Part of macOS 26.4, in fact: https://eclecticlight.co/2026/09/19/macos-tahoe-26-4-changed... "The layout of those hasn’t changed in over six years up to and including macOS Tahoe 26.3.1, but has altered in 26.4 and Golden Gate, with the addition of a new firmlinked directory pkg."

Apple doesn't do this stuff lightly. A search of WWDC sessions doesn't mention /pkg specifically, but I'd bet it's related to this: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2026/206/?time=6...

So if it's about that WWDC content, it would only be for a new type of MDM managed app installation (declarative management). No new first-party Homebrew ;)

Transcript (@ timestamp) for convenience:

> 10:33 > Next, packages. macOS 27 now gives IT administrators the option to remove all the files and directories that are installed by a declarative management package, when the package configuration itself is removed. > 10:48 > This ensures unwanted data and files are not left behind on devices when no longer needed.

> It’s also not clear what the “pmk” in /etc/paths.d/10-pmk-global refers to.

Maybe package management kit, if we go by recent Apple naming conventions.

How far Apple has come from the OpenSTEP days, when it would have been called /Package (if the guesses at are correct). (-:

So they might be aiming for their own brew? Or is there some expectation for a different thing altogether?

It is surprising to me that in such a tightly controlled experience, they haven't attempted to displace brew already.

As a NetBSD user, I would guess it is for use with pkgsrc. That would be great for mac people if my wild guess is correct.

http://pkgsrc.org/

As a new Mac user I could not decide between Macports and Homebrew, and I went with pkgsrc/pkgin. Cannot complain, have had zero reason to revisit that decision ever since.

Does pkgsrc use the env, etc, inv, and var subdirectories of /pkg seen here?

These are the directories under /usr/pkg on NetBSD based upon packages I installed. But setup depends upon OS and the person who set it up. I never heard of inv, maybe inv is a mac thing.

     bin   | include | pkgdb.refcount
     dict  | info    | pkgsrc
     etc   | lib     | qt5
     gcc12 | libdata | qt6
     gcc14 | libexec | sbin
     gcc16 | man     | share
     gnu   | pkgdb   | tests

On NetBSD /var used for logs other data. But I suppose someone could configure under 'pkg' if they wanted to,

Probably not, then. The /pkg hierarchy on macOS doesn't look like that at all - there's no /pkg/bin, only /pkg/env/global/bin, where /pkg/env/global is a symlink to a subdirectory of /pkg/inv/envs.

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