Easy setup Elixir / Erlang OTP using mise

First, what is mise?

Straight to the point, mise-en-place (or simply mise) is a modern dev-tool manager that simplifies managing multiple versions of programming languages and development tools.

Just like:

• asdf manages versions of development tools,
• direnv manages environment variables dynamically,
• make automates development tasks,

mise combines version management with a seamless experience for developers.

Why should I use mise instead of ASDF (or others)?

While asdf is a well-known tool, mise offers some advantages that might make it a better fit for your workflow:

1. All-in-One Solution: mise provides a unified experience, reducing the need for additional plugins and manual setup.
2. Better Performance: It’s optimized for speed, making tool switching and environment loading faster.
3. Compatibility: It supports .tool-versions files (used by asdf), making migration easy.
4. Simplified Configuration: Unlike asdf, mise is designed with sane defaults and minimal configuration hassle.
5. Declarative & Reproducible Environments: Define tools per project with a single file, making onboarding and collaboration smoother.

How does mise work?

mise works by reading configuration files (like .tool-versions or .mise.toml) and ensuring that the correct versions of tools are available in your shell environment. It integrates seamlessly with popular shells like bash, zsh, and fish, making it easy to use across different systems.

Installation & First Steps

To install mise, simply run:

curl -fsSL https://mise.run/install.sh | sh #On linux OS

Or, if you are using Homebrew

brew install mise 

After installation, you can add it to your shell profile:

eval "$(mise activate zsh)" #Replace `zsh` with your shell if needed

And last, activate:

mise activate

Check if everything is right:

mise doctor

Install a tool (e.g., Elixir, because Elixir is great):

mise use --global elixir@latest erlang@latest

Check the installed tools:

mise ls

And you might have something like that:

Tool    Version        Source                      Requested
elixir  1.18.2-otp-27  ~/.config/mise/config.toml  latest
erlang  27.2.2         ~/.config/mise/config.toml  latest
node    22.14.0        ~/.config/mise/config.toml  22

With mise, managing development environments becomes faster, easier, and more efficient.