Precompiled Ruby Binaries

[jdx]

We're excited to announce experimental support for precompiled Ruby binaries in mise! This can dramatically reduce Ruby installation time from several minutes (compiling from source) to just seconds.

How to Enable

Precompiled binaries require experimental mode:

mise settings ruby.compile=false
mise use ruby@3.4.1

Supported Platforms

Precompiled binaries are sourced from jdx/ruby and currently support:

• macOS (arm64/Apple Silicon only)
• Linux arm64
• Linux x86_64

How It Works

With experimental mode enabled, mise will:

1. Check if a precompiled binary exists for your Ruby version and platform
2. If available, download and extract the precompiled binary
3. If not available, automatically fall back to compiling from source using ruby-build

This means you get fast installs when precompiled versions exist, with zero breakage for versions or platforms that don't have them yet.

Settings

• ruby.compile - Set to true to always compile from source, even when precompiled binaries are available
• ruby.precompiled_url - Custom source for precompiled binaries (GitHub repo or URL template)

See PR #7263 for implementation details.

[cschmatzler]

This broke our deployments using Kamal, installed through the gem backend.
Our mise.toml before:

[tools]
elixir = "1.19.2"
erlang = "28.1"
ruby = "3.3.10"
"gem:kamal" = "2.10.1"
[settings]
experimental = true

When running kamal deploy, the kamal executable cannot find Ruby:

/home/runner/.local/share/mise/installs/gem-kamal/2.8.2/libexec/bin/kamal: line 6: /home/runner/.local/share/mise/installs/gem-kamal/2.8.2/libexec/bin/ruby: No such file or directory

Example failing run:
https://github.com/tuist/tuist/actions/runs/20269012814/job/58199509821
Previously working run on 2025.12.2:
https://github.com/tuist/tuist/actions/runs/20237055212/job/58094476636

After adding ruby.compile = true, Kamal can find Ruby again.
Might be a weird interaction between the gem backend and the precompiled binaries?

[jdx]

this should be fixed

[carhartl]

On MacOS (15.7.3), with precompiled binaries I could no longer update gems, e.g. gem update - installation of both the openssl and psych gems fail, they don't seem to find the necessary headers from openssl and libyaml respectively. This is all in conjunction with using Homebrew.

I can get to install those gems with the following:

gem update -- --with-openssl-dir=$(brew --prefix openssl@3) --with-libyaml-dir=/opt/homebrew/Cellar/libyaml/0.2.5

but afterwards the entire ruby installation is broken, that is, I could no longer perform most of gem commands, the macOS security mechanism wouldn't allow certain files from those gems to be accessed.

[jdx]

this should now be fixed

[jdx]

A fix for the native extension header issue has been submitted:

jdx/ruby#1

This PR:

1. Copies headers from portable dependencies (openssl, libyaml, etc.) into the Ruby tarball's include/ directory during packaging
2. Updates rbconfig.rb to include -I#{prefix}/include in CPPFLAGS so mkmf can find the headers when building native gems
3. Adds CI tests for openssl and psych gem installation on macOS and Linux

Note: This comment was AI-generated using Claude Code

[nateberkopec]

I'm having issues with MacOS Team IDs, as the precompiled binary is signed by your developer ID cert, but my native extensions all have no Team ID.

Example:

Bundler::GemRequireError: There was an error while trying to load the gem 'faraday'. (Bundler::GemRequireError)
Gem Load Error is: dlopen(/Users/nateberkopec/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/3.4.8/lib/ruby/gems/3.4.0/gems/json-2.12.2/lib/json/ext/parser.bundle, 0x0009): tried: '/Users/nateberkopec/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/3.4.8/lib/ruby/gems/3.4.0/gems/json-2.12.2/lib/json/ext/parser.bundle' (code signature in <CC5A00D0-EE8F-3316-BEF4-B8BC10CE615E> '/Users/nateberkopec/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/3.4.8/lib/ruby/gems/3.4.0/gems/json-2.12.2/lib/json/ext/parser.bundle' not valid for use in process: mapping process and mapped file (non-platform) have different Team IDs), '/System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/OS/Users/nateberkopec/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/3.4.8/lib/ruby/gems/3.4.0/gems/json-2.12.2/lib/json/ext/parser.bundle' (no such file), '/Users/nateberkopec/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/3.4.8/lib/ruby/gems/3.4.0/gems/json-2.12.2/lib/json/ext/parser.bundle' (code signature in <CC5A00D0-EE8F-3316-BEF4-B8BC10CE615E> '/Users/nateberkopec/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/3.4.8/lib/ruby/gems/3.4.0/gems/json-2.12.2/lib/json/ext/parser.bundle' not valid for use in process: mapping process and mapped file (non-platform) have different Team IDs) - /Users/nateberkopec/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/3.4.8/lib/ruby/gems/3.4.0/gems/json-2.12.2/lib/json/ext/parser.bundle

Resigning it ad-hoc removes the issue of course, but that doesn't seem like a sustainable solution?

codesign --force --sign - ~/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/3.4.8/bin/ruby

[carhartl]

Aha! This is what I was seeing when building the gems with the explicit OpenSSL and Yaml headers option.

[jdx]

hmm maybe I should just remove the signing? not totally sure why this is creating a problem

[jdx]

this should now be fixed

[indirect]

@nateberkopec I'm having trouble reproducing this issue with Rubies built for rv, do you by any chance have an example of how to reproduce your issue? This is what I'm trying right now, in a fresh macOS VM:

brew install rv
rv run --ruby 3.4.8 bundle init
rv run --ruby 3.4.8 bundle config set path .bundle
rv run --ruby 3.4.8 bundle add faraday
rv run --ruby 3.4.8 bundle exec ruby -e 'Bundler.require; print "# "; puts JSON.dump(a: 1)'
# {"a":1}

[samandmoore]

This is working great for me after the latest changes, but i'm encountering one funky thing. I have a ~/.default_gems file that has ruby-lsp in it. it appears that when mise attempts to install those gems after installing this prebuilt ruby, it encounters an issue where rbs (a dependency of ruby-lsp) is already installed and it's failing. here's the message:

❯ mise install
ERROR:  Error installing ruby-lsp:
        "rbs" from rbs conflicts with /Users/sam/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/3.2.8/bin/rbs
mise ERROR ~/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/3.2.8/bin/gem failed
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing ruby-lsp:
        "rbs" from rbs conflicts with /Users/sam/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/3.2.8/bin/rbs
mise WARN  failed to install default ruby gems ~/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/3.2.8/bin/gem exited with non-zero status: exit code 1

The workaround is to uninstall rbs and then install ruby-lsp.

I haven't had a chance to investigate further, but is it possible that the prebuilt rubies are coming with some gems already installed and there's some missing metadata to let rubygems know that it's already installed?

[jdx]

it's possible, it looks like rbs is a "bundled gem" https://stdgems.org/bundled_gems.json

[Drowze]

I also got issues through the usage of ~/.default_gems with bundled gems.

$ mise install --verbose ruby@4
# ...
INFO  ruby@4.0.1                       extract ruby-4.0.1.macos.tar.gz
DEBUG tar -xf /Users/drowze.dev@foobar.com/.local/share/mise/downloads/ruby/4.0.1/ruby-4.0.1.macos.tar.gz -C /Users/drowze.dev@foobar.com/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/4.0.1
DEBUG ls: "/Users/drowze.dev@foobar.com/.local/state/mise/hints"
INFO  ruby@4.0.1                       install default gem: debug
DEBUG $ ~/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/4.0.1/bin/gem install debug
INFO  ruby@4.0.1                       Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::FilePermissionError)
    You don't have write permissions for the /Users/drowze.dev@foobar.com/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/4.0.1/lib/ruby/gems/4.0.0/specifications/debug-1.11.1.gemspec directory.
ERROR ~/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/4.0.1/bin/gem failed
WARN  failed to install default ruby gems ~/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/4.0.1/bin/gem exited with non-zero status: exit code 1
INFO  ruby@4.0.1                     ✓ installed
DEBUG [vfox] Getting metadata for postgres
DEBUG config: ~/.config/mise/config.toml
DEBUG [core:ruby@4.0.1] list_bin_paths: ["/Users/drowze.dev@foobar.com/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/4.0.1/bin"]
DEBUG [vfox] Getting metadata for postgres
DEBUG config: ~/.config/mise/config.toml
DEBUG Getting env keys for postgres version 14.18
DEBUG [vfox] Getting metadata for postgres
DEBUG [vfox:postgres] env_keys
DEBUG updating 1 lockfiles

My ~/.default-gems:

debug
foreman
irb
pry
rubocop
ruby-lsp

NOTE: I explicitly re-install some bundled gems (debug & irb seen above) to make sure I'm on the latest version of them.

For comparison:

# This ruby was installed with mise and compiled from source. Note that I have write permissions to it.
$ ls -ll $(mise where ruby@3)/lib/ruby/gems/3.4.0/specifications/debug-1.11.1.gemspec
-rw-r--r--@ 1 drowze.dev@foobar.com  staff  1445 Dec 26 09:42 /Users/drowze.dev@foobar.com/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/3.4.8/lib/ruby/gems/3.4.0/specifications/debug-1.11.1.gemspec

# This ruby was installed with mise but pre-compiled. Note that I do not have write permissions to it.
$ ls -ll $(mise where ruby@4)/lib/ruby/gems/4.0.0/specifications/debug-1.11.1.gemspec
-r--r--r--@ 1 drowze.dev@foobar.com  staff  1445 Jan 18 17:58 /Users/drowze.dev@foobar.com/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/4.0.1/lib/ruby/gems/4.0.0/specifications/debug-1.11.1.gemspec

My environment:

$ sw_vers
ProductName:		macOS
ProductVersion:		15.7.3
BuildVersion:		24G419

$ mise version
2026.1.6 macos-arm64 (2026-01-21)

---

(obs.: not sure if relevant but I have an unusual username (an email) on this laptop due to company policy - I've seen this breaking things in the past lol)

[jdx]

I missed this one, looks like we aren't setting the chmod the same way with precompiled with the gems, should be an easy fix. As a workaround just chmod +w the ruby

[jdx]

should be fixed

[jordancarlin]

The precompiled Ruby binaries do not work with older glibc versions. On AlmaLinux 9.7 I get the following error using the mise pre-compiled Ruby binaries:

ruby: /lib64/libm.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.35' not found (required by ruby)

RHEL/AlmaLinux 8 and 9 are still in widespread use, so supporting both of them would be useful. This should be possible by compiling the Ruby binaries on an older distro that has an older version of glibc installed.

[jdx]

it looks like we can build for earlier ones but we will need to disable yjit

[jordancarlin]

Hmm. That's unfortunate. Using yjit is very helpful for performance. I wonder if it is possible to build two variants and automatically download the right one based on the host glibc version. One with yjit but requiring a newer glibc and one without using an older glibc.

[jordancarlin]

Looks like that's exactly what #8069 does. Thanks!

[edwardloveall]

I was unable to install a precompiled ruby 3.2.2 even though there is a release for it. 3.4.1 worked fine, though. I ran mise -v to see if it had anything to say but I can't tell if it fails in some way. Here are the first few lines of the 3.4.1 log:

DEBUG ARGS: mise -v use ruby@3.4.1
DEBUG [vfox] Getting metadata for yarn
DEBUG config: ~/portfolio/.tool-versions
DEBUG config: ~/.config/mise/config.toml
DEBUG GET https://mise-versions.jdx.dev/tools/ruby.toml
DEBUG starting new connection: https://mise-versions.jdx.dev/
DEBUG connecting to 104.20.42.82:443
DEBUG connected to 104.20.42.82:443
DEBUG GET https://mise-versions.jdx.dev/tools/ruby.toml 200 OK
DEBUG pooling idle connection for ("https", mise-versions.jdx.dev)
DEBUG POST https://mise-versions.jdx.dev/api/track
INFO  ruby@3.4.1      [1/3] install
DEBUG reuse idle connection for ("https", mise-versions.jdx.dev)
DEBUG detected glibc version: 2.41
DEBUG GET https://api.github.com/repos/jdx/ruby/releases

Clearly it's fetching from jdx/ruby. Here's ruby 3.2.2:

DEBUG ARGS: mise -v use ruby@3.2.2
DEBUG [vfox] Getting metadata for yarn
DEBUG config: ~/portfolio/.tool-versions
DEBUG config: ~/.config/mise/config.toml
INFO  ruby@3.2.2      [1/3] install
DEBUG detected glibc version: 2.41
DEBUG $ /home/deploy/.cache/mise/ruby/ruby-build/bin/ruby-build --version
DEBUG GET https://api.github.com/repos/rbenv/ruby-build/releases/latest
DEBUG starting new connection: https://api.github.com/
DEBUG POST https://mise-versions.jdx.dev/api/track
DEBUG starting new connection: https://mise-versions.jdx.dev/
DEBUG connecting to 104.20.42.82:443
DEBUG connected to 104.20.42.82:443
DEBUG connecting to 140.82.114.5:443
DEBUG connected to 140.82.114.5:443
DEBUG pooling idle connection for ("https", mise-versions.jdx.dev)
DEBUG GET https://api.github.com/repos/rbenv/ruby-build/releases/latest 200 OK
DEBUG pooling idle connection for ("https", api.github.com)
INFO  ruby@3.2.2      [1/3] ruby-build

And there it's trying to build it from source. I'm going to upgrade the project to a newer version, but this could be a bug to look into.