How to install specific version of brew cask formula with ansible?

With newer versions of Homebrew the cask command has been removed and results in an error Error: Unknown command: cask.

I was able to install a specific version on Homebrew 3.1.12 with these steps:

1. Follow the steps from https://stackoverflow.com/a/61552727/3302668 to find the .rb file for your package

2. Download the file locally with: curl -O -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/<commit>/Casks/<package>.rb (note: YMMV depending on curl version).

   Ex:curl -O -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/d81815ea27a778a312fa0e2bbef0d78f9767f45b/Casks/vagrant.rb

3. brew install --cask <package>.rb

   Ex:brew install --cask vagrant.rb

I followed these steps to downgrade vagrant from 2.2.16 to vagrant 2.2.15, on macOS 11.4

EDIT: This answer is for older versions of brew that supported the cask sub-command, before it was removed in newer versions of brew. Left here for archival purposes.

$ brew cask install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/<git-hash>/Casks/<cask-ruby-file>.rb

/TL;DR

Unlike homebrew, casks are not versioned with @#.#.#. Instead, you must find the exact git commit hash to install from, in addition to the file name of the cask itself to run, and pass in an URL.

For example, to install ChefDK:

• Know the exact version you want to install of ChefDK (there's really no browsing)
• Head to the git repo holding all of the Casks: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask
• Use the Search feature and find your Ruby file to run (in this case, /Casks/chefdk.rb) and type a version. E.g. "chefdk 2.5.3" in the search field

• Click the PR that, and open it. In this case, that PR number is 44655 in the screenshot above.
• Find the last commit in the PR, and click it (we need the full hash of that commit which is only in that commit message).

• Now, grab the full commit hash. For this, it's "be76032ad4fd5b03036ebe3628a6294354017906"
• Finally, we can build the URL and install that specific version. The format of the url is:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/<git-hash>/Casks/<cask-ruby-file>.rb

So we need fill in the gaps with the git hash and cast-ruby-file:

brew cask install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/be76032ad4fd5b03036ebe3628a6294354017906/Casks/chefdk.rb

It's not fun, but it's the only way...

I have found this solution:

---
- hosts: all
  tasks:
  - name: Task 1 - Check vagrant 2.2.6 is installed
    stat: path=/usr/local/Caskroom/vagrant/2.2.6
    register: vagrant_installed
  - name: Task 2 - Install vagrant 2.2.6 if not yet installed
    block:
      - name: Create temporary directory to download vagrant formula
        tempfile:
          state: directory
        register: tempdir_vagrant_rb
      - name: Download formula vagrant.rb version 2.2.6
        get_url:
          url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/ae2a540ffee555491ccbb2cefa4296c76355ef9f/Casks/vagrant.rb
          dest: "{{ tempdir_vagrant_rb.path }}/vagrant.rb"
      - name: Install vagrant 2.2.6
        command: brew cask install {{ tempdir_vagrant_rb.path }}/vagrant.rb

First task checks if vagrant 2.2.6 is already installed by going to default cask directory. It's required to keep playbook idempotent.

Second task installs vagrant 2.2.6 using direct raw URL to the formula version 2.2.6. To find the URL, I have used this step-by-step documentation.

1.To create a tap that could store the set which has the formula of specific version.

brew tap-new [tap name]/local

2.To extract the formula of specific version.

brew extract --force --version=[version] [formula name] [tap name]/local

3.If previous step is success, you can directly install it.

brew install [formula name]@[version]

And you could use my tool.

bash <(curl -s -S -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/2016321/Formula-Founder/main/install_specific_version_formula.sh) [formula name] [version] [specific tap, defaut is homebrew/cask]

4.But sometime you could not extract the formula what you want. You should use git. Actually, the tap is a git repository.

4_1.To found the correct tap which has the formula what you want. For example, I want to install the 2.18.0 version of xcodegen. Xcodegen is in homebrew-core.

cd /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core/Formula

4_2.To check the correct hash with regard to xcodegen.

git log xcodegen

git checkout 421359f4b3d6e8048e8660396d2fc6afb8557815

4_3.To install the 2.18.0 version of xcodegen. And you should stop(control + c) when the brew is updating automatically.

brew install xcodegen

4_4.You needn't checkout master in the brew's tap, because brew will automatically update if you hasn't set [HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=true] in envionment variables when you install a new formula next time.