EmacsWiki: MELPA (original) (raw)
MELPA is an ELPA-compatible package repository that contains an enormous number of useful Emacs packages.
In contrast to ELPA, Emacs is not configured by default to install packages from MELPA. You will have to configure Emacs to use it.
Get started
To add MELPA to your package-archives, put this in your init file:
(require 'package) (add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/"))
If you prefer versions that have been tagged by their maintainers for release, you can use this instead:
(require 'package) (add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa-stable" . "https://stable.melpa.org/packages/"))
Next, you can use ‘M-x package-list-packages’ and install new things to your heart’s content.
For more information, see Getting started with MELPA.
MELPA Stable
For builds of stable version packages triggered by upstream version tags, see MELPA Stable.
The definition of “stable” in this context is rather informal. A Reddit post outlines the situation and issues some caveats.
Adding your package
MELPA uses a recipe system similar to Homebrew or el-get. Recipes are stored in a github repository which tells the updated package.el how to download each package.
The collaboration model for MELPA is like that of the Homebrew package manager on OS X. Package authors do not need to upload new versions of their packages to MELPA, since they are built automatically. To add new recipes, simply file a pull request on Github. Currently supported backends are git, svn, bzr, hg, and darcs.
History
- MELPA used to support packages directly from this wiki, but no longer does due to security concerns.
- Reddit post by Drew Adams about those security concerns and his libraries on EmacsWiki.