External Packages

As mentioned in the previous section, Espanso can install packages from multiple sources. For most users, the official Espanso Hub should be the preferred way to install new packages, as those have been verified by the Espanso Team to guarantee quality and security standards.

That said, there are times when you might want to install packages from outside the hub. For example, you might want to create private, company-specific packages to share with your collegues, or simply you want to manage your packages intependently from the Hub.

Call for package creators

If you created a public package that could be useful to others, please consider submitting it to the Espanso Hub. Not only it's free, but it also greatly helps the project and the community! :)

This guide is divided in two parts, one about public alternatives to the Hub, and one about private ones.

Public alternatives

This section is about public alternatives to the Hub, that is, other ways in which you can install public packages without relying on the Hub. If you wish to install private packages instead, please skip to the next section.

GitHub or GitLab repositories

As long as the repository follows the Package Specification format, you can install a package from any GitHub and GitLab repository by specifying the --git option.

For example, to install the dummy-package from our test dummy-repository, we can run the following command in a terminal:

espanso install dummy-package --git https://github.com/espanso/dummy-repository --external

Git repositories

As long as the repository follows the Package Specification format, you can install a package from any git repository by specifying the --git option.

git command must be installed!

Compared to the previous section where we installed a package from GitHub or GitLab, installing from a generic git repository requires the git command to being installed.

The git command is not needed on GitHub and GitLab because Espanso uses platform-specific APIs to download the packages. On the other hand, Espanso uses a git clone to fetch a package from other git repositories.

For example, to install the dummy-package from our test dummy-repository, we can run the following command in a terminal:

espanso install dummy-package --git https://github.com/espanso/dummy-repository --external

Private alternatives

This section is about private alternatives to the Hub, that is, ways in which you can install private packages. This is particularly useful in a company environment, where you might want to share snippets with your team without publishing them on the Hub.

Git repositories

As long as the repository follows the Package Specification format, you can install a package from any git repository by specifying the --git option.

Setting up git

With private repositories, Espanso currently relies on the git command to fetch the contents of a private package. For this reason, make sure the git command is installed on the machine (and properly added to the PATH) and that permissions are set up correctly.

As a rule of thumb, if you are able to run git clone <your_repo_url> on the machine, then Espanso should install the package correctly.

For example, to install the dummy-package from our test dummy-repository (in this case, assuming the repository was private), we can run the following command in a terminal:

espanso install dummy-package --git https://github.com/espanso/dummy-repository --external