Shell Activation <Badge type="warning" text="experimental" />

mise can declaratively add shell activation snippets for bash, zsh, and fish with [bootstrap.mise_shell_activate]. Configure startup-file targets directly when you want separate shims and normal activation setup:

toml

[bootstrap.mise_shell_activate]
zprofile = "shims"
zshrc = "activate"
bash_profile = "shims"
bashrc = "activate"
fish = "activate"

Use compact table form when you want a shape that can accept future options:

toml

[bootstrap.mise_shell_activate]
zprofile = {enabled = true, mode = "shims"}
zshrc = {enabled = true, mode = "activate"}

Shell keys are shortcuts. For example, zsh = true expands to zprofile = "shims" and zshrc = "activate".

Any target can use either "activate" or "shims". Boolean true enables the target with its default mode, and false disables it.

mise bootstrap mise-shell-activate apply writes marker-delimited blocks to the shell rc file:

Target	Shell	Default mode	Target file	Block
`bash_profile`	bash	`shims`	`~/.bash_profile`	`eval "$(mise activate bash --shims)"`
`bashrc`	bash	`activate`	`~/.bashrc`	`eval "$(mise activate bash)"`
`zprofile`	zsh	`shims`	`~/.zprofile`	`eval "$(mise activate zsh --shims)"`
`zshrc`	zsh	`activate`	`~/.zshrc`	`eval "$(mise activate zsh)"`
`zshenv`	zsh	`shims`	`~/.zshenv`	`eval "$(mise activate zsh --shims)"`
`fish`	fish	`activate`	`~/.config/fish/config.fish`	`mise activate fish \| source`

The markers are the same edit markers used by Dotfiles:

# >>> mise:activate >>> managed by mise - do not edit between markers
eval "$(mise activate zsh)"
# <<< mise:activate <<<

Semantics

[bootstrap.mise_shell_activate] follows the same manual, idempotent model as other bootstrap sections:

Per-target override - a project config can override a global setting for one startup file with zshrc = false without changing zprofile.
Manual application only - mise never edits shell rc files implicitly. Only mise bootstrap mise-shell-activate apply and mise bootstrap apply this section.
Marker-owned edits - mise only owns the block between its markers. Other content in the rc file is left untouched.
Shims stay out of zshenv by default - zshenv is supported when configured explicitly, but shell shortcuts do not write it because zsh reads it for every invocation, including scripts.
Explicit dotfiles win - if [dotfiles] already manages the same rc file as a whole file, or defines an edit for the same target/id such as "~/.zshrc/activate", mise skips the generated shell activation entry for that shell.

For fully managed rc files or custom activation blocks, use [dotfiles] directly instead.

Commands

mise bootstrap mise-shell-activate status            # shows activation block state
mise bootstrap mise-shell-activate status --json     # machine-readable
mise bootstrap mise-shell-activate status --missing  # exit 1 if anything is out of sync

mise bootstrap mise-shell-activate apply           # writes missing/different blocks
mise bootstrap mise-shell-activate apply --dry-run # print the edits instead
mise bootstrap mise-shell-activate apply --yes     # skip the confirmation prompt

JSON status entries include target, shell, path, mode, and state. state is "missing" | "applied" | "differs" | "source_missing". Entries with state = "differs" also include a reason field.