Part of macOS 26.4, in fact: https://eclecticlight.co/2026/09/19/macos-tahoe-26-4-changed..."The layout of those hasn’t changed in over six years up to and including macOS Tahoe 26.3.1, but has altered in 26.4 and Golden Gate, with the addition of a new firmlinked directory pkg."
As a new Mac user I could not decide between Macports and Homebrew, and I went with pkgsrc/pkgin. Cannot complain, have had zero reason to revisit that decision ever since.
These are the directories under /usr/pkg on NetBSD based upon packages I installed. But setup depends upon OS and the person who set it up. I never heard of inv, maybe inv is a mac thing.
bin | include | pkgdb.refcount
dict | info | pkgsrc
etc | lib | qt5
gcc12 | libdata | qt6
gcc14 | libexec | sbin
gcc16 | man | share
gnu | pkgdb | tests
On NetBSD /var used for logs other data. But I suppose someone could configure under 'pkg' if they wanted to,
Probably not, then. The /pkg hierarchy on macOS doesn't look like that at all - there's no /pkg/bin, only /pkg/env/global/bin, where /pkg/env/global is a symlink to a subdirectory of /pkg/inv/envs.
> "Turns out, this is part of macOS 27.0…"
Part of macOS 26.4, in fact: https://eclecticlight.co/2026/09/19/macos-tahoe-26-4-changed... "The layout of those hasn’t changed in over six years up to and including macOS Tahoe 26.3.1, but has altered in 26.4 and Golden Gate, with the addition of a new firmlinked directory pkg."
Apple doesn't do this stuff lightly. A search of WWDC sessions doesn't mention /pkg specifically, but I'd bet it's related to this: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2026/206/?time=6...
> It’s also not clear what the “pmk” in /etc/paths.d/10-pmk-global refers to.
Maybe package management kit, if we go by recent Apple naming conventions.
So they might be aiming for their own brew? Or is there some expectation for a different thing altogether?
It is surprising to me that in such a tightly controlled experience, they haven't attempted to displace brew already.
As a NetBSD user, I would guess it is for use with pkgsrc. That would be great for mac people if my wild guess is correct.
http://pkgsrc.org/
As a new Mac user I could not decide between Macports and Homebrew, and I went with pkgsrc/pkgin. Cannot complain, have had zero reason to revisit that decision ever since.
Does pkgsrc use the env, etc, inv, and var subdirectories of /pkg seen here?
These are the directories under /usr/pkg on NetBSD based upon packages I installed. But setup depends upon OS and the person who set it up. I never heard of inv, maybe inv is a mac thing.
On NetBSD /var used for logs other data. But I suppose someone could configure under 'pkg' if they wanted to,Probably not, then. The /pkg hierarchy on macOS doesn't look like that at all - there's no /pkg/bin, only /pkg/env/global/bin, where /pkg/env/global is a symlink to a subdirectory of /pkg/inv/envs.