Managing Elixir's main branch with asdf

I’ve always used asdf to manage Elixir versions, and I’ve also had a persistent need to run projects or experiments with the latest code from the Elixir repo (main branch). Installing the main branch is quite simple:

1. Clone the Elixir code and build it locally:

   git clone https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir.git /path/to/elixir
   cd /path/to/elixir && make
   

2. Create a symlink in the asdf installs directory and switch to the main version:

   ln -s /path/to/elixir ~/.asdf/installs/elixir/main
   asdf reshim elixir main
   asdf shell elixir main | asdf global elixir main
   

3. Verify:

   $ asdf list elixir
     1.15.7-otp-26
     1.16.0-otp-26
    *main
   

4. Daily update:

   cd /path/to/elixir && git pull && make
   

• You can write the above update commands to a script and run it periodically to ensure you’re always using the latest version of the main branch.

• If running make directly throws compilation errors, you need to delete the previous build artifacts before rebuilding:

  cd /path/to/elixir
  make clean && make
  

• Using the main branch can be somewhat unstable as it’s still under development.