Installing extensions
Three ways in, the registries behind them, and when you need a toolchain.
Settings → Extensions → Install offers three ways in.
Search Registries
Searches every enabled registry, and installs from any of them. This is the usual way.
Import from Raycast
Copies extensions you already have out of Raycast on this Mac.
Nothing is built. No Node, no package manager and no network are needed, because the extensions are already built.
Tinycast looks in both ~/.config/raycast and ~/.config/raycast-x, and an extension found in both
is offered once. There is an Import All button. The pane checks again whenever you open it, and
tells you when Raycast has something Tinycast does not.
Add from folder
Point at any folder with a manifest and built command files, like a project you just built yourself.
Only package.json, the built commands and assets/ are copied. Never node_modules, and never
source maps.
Registries
Two come switched on, and you can add your own.
| Raycast Store | A GitHub repository | |
|---|---|---|
| Gives you | An extension already built | Source code |
| You need | Nothing | Node and a package manager |
The store is why most people need no toolchain at all. It hands over what was already built.
A GitHub registry is any repository with one folder per extension, like raycast/extensions. Add one
with owner/repo or a link to the folder. Only the extension's own folder is downloaded, never the
whole repository.
Installing from source runs <package manager> install --ignore-scripts, then builds the extension.
Install scripts are skipped on purpose, because that is code nobody asked to run. An extension
that does not build fails at the build step, instead of installing half-broken.
Package managers
Settings → Extensions → Package manager
Automatic (default) uses the first of pnpm → Bun → Yarn → npm that you have. The fastest and most disk-friendly come first, and npm, which is nearly always there, comes last.
An app opened from the Dock does not see your terminal's PATH, so Tinycast looks in the usual places
itself: Homebrew, Volta, asdf, mise, fnm, nvm and Yarn. The pane shows what it found, like
"Found pnpm at /opt/homebrew/bin/pnpm", or tells you nothing is installed.
Custom search paths
For anything outside that list, like Nix, the Registries sheet has Custom search paths: a list of
folders separated by colons, like PATH, checked before the usual places.
~/.local/share/mise/shims/etc/profiles/per-user/you/home-path/binSet it once and every future install uses it.
What is not backed up
Three things are left out of backups on purpose, because they describe this Mac:
- The registry list
- The package manager choice
- Custom search paths
Storage
Everything lives in Tinycast's Application Support folder, and uninstalling an extension removes all of it: the extension, its storage and cache, its preferences, its support folder, its sign-ins in the Keychain, its icon choice, its command shortcuts, favorites, aliases and learned ranking.
Settings → Extensions → Storage measures leftover build folders, the kind a crashed install can leave behind, and offers to clean them up. It works even while extensions are off, and it is empty in normal use.
Nothing ever touches your own ~/Library/pnpm or ~/.npm.