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Activate & Deactivate ​

Activating a Runtime ​

bash
futou use <name> <version>

Activation does two things:

  1. Creates .bat shim files in the shims directory (%APPDATA%\.futou\shims\). Each executable in the runtime's bin/ directory gets a .bat wrapper.
  2. Adds the shims directory to PATH via the Windows registry (HKCU\Environment\PATH). A WM_SETTINGCHANGE broadcast notifies running processes.
bash
$ futou use php 8.4.23
php 8.4.23 is now active

After activation, php, php-cgi, and other PHP binaries are available from any terminal.

Multiple Activations

You can activate multiple runtimes simultaneously. For example, futou use php 8.4.23 then futou use nodejs 22.23.1 — both will be available in your PATH.

Deactivating a Runtime ​

bash
futou deactivate <name>

Removes the runtime's shims from the shims directory and clears the active entry in state. Does not remove the runtime from PATH if other runtimes' shims are still present.

bash
$ futou deactivate php
php deactivated

Shim Cleanup

Deactivation only removes shims for the specified runtime. Other runtimes' shims remain untouched. The daemon tracks which shims belong to which runtime via shims.json.