HELIX

All tools

Helix Toolbox

Set up and look after a Linux machine from one menu in the terminal.

Applications, dotfiles and shell configuration, system tweaks, updates, backups and health checks. Every change is planned, shown with its risk, confirmed, verified and recorded.

Download v1.25.8Source on GitHubDocumentation

Released October 25, 2026.

Helix Toolbox dashboard in a terminal: system overview and quick actions
Helix Toolbox dashboard in a terminal: system overview and quick actions
The Install Plan listing each step with its risk before anything runs
The Install Plan listing each step with its risk before anything runs
Browsing the application catalog
Browsing the application catalog
Helix Doctor health checks
Helix Doctor health checks
The Helix Toolbox desktop window
The Helix Toolbox desktop window

What it does

  • A catalog of hundreds of applications and tweaks, with profiles and a first-run wizard for developer, gaming, privacy and minimal setups.
  • Knows your machine: what is installed and from where (pacman, apt, dnf, zypper, AUR, Flatpak), its version and any waiting updates.
  • The Install Plan shows every step, its risk and any password prompt, and checks conflicts, repositories, hardware and disk space before anything runs.
  • Runs are verified, fall back from the AUR to Flathub when they need to, and land in a history you can read later.
  • Helix Doctor checks the system and offers repairs, which you confirm one by one.
  • Snapshots with Snapper or Timeshift, and Restic backups that are test-restored and checked against SHA-256 sums.
  • Drift checks, moving a setup between distributions, firmware and hardware health, systemd services, Git repositories and Home Manager generations.
  • A Ctrl-K command palette, a desktop window, and a command line where everything takes --dry-run and --json.

Install

Try it without installing

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Commanderx-code/Helix-toolbox/main/start.sh | sh

Arch

Download the package from the latest release, then:

sudo pacman -U helix-toolbox-*-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Debian and Ubuntu

sudo apt install ./helix-toolbox_*_amd64.deb

Fedora

sudo dnf install ./helix-toolbox-*.x86_64.rpm

Any distribution, with Cargo

cargo install --locked helix-toolbox

Requirements

Linux on x86_64 or aarch64 with glibc 2.35 or later. Tested on Arch, Debian, Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04, Fedora and openSUSE Tumbleweed.

MIT license.