August 1, 2026
Building toolsniff - a tool to see what's on my Mac
There are so many new developer tools and AI projects coming out every week. I found myself losing track of what’s actually installed on my laptop - things I installed via Homebrew, npm, cargo, pipx, Bun, or just downloaded as .app files.
I wanted a single place to see everything. Not a checklist of “known tools” but an honest inventory of what’s actually there.
Why I built it
I kept forgetting what I had installed. Did I install gh via Homebrew or npm? Is that CLI tool from cargo or did I download it manually? Is that app in /Applications or ~/Applications?
I wanted one command that shows me everything - grouped by where it came from, with a baseline so I can see what changed next time.
What it does
toolsniff scans your Mac and shows you everything grouped by source:
- Homebrew formulae —
brew list --formula - Homebrew casks —
brew list --cask - npm global packages
- npx history — one-off runs (informational only)
- pipx environments
- cargo binaries
- Bun global binaries
- Applications — every
.appin/Applicationsand~/Applications - PATH — executables in your PATH (skipping system dirs)
Links
- GitHub: https://github.com/pranvgarg/toolsniff
- Homebrew Tap: https://github.com/pranvgarg/homebrew-toolsniff
Built this because I needed it. Maybe you’ll find it useful too.