Chocolatey packages (choco)
The choco manager installs and upgrades Windows packages with Chocolatey, which installs software machine-wide.
[bootstrap.packages]
"choco:git" = "latest"
"choco:docker-engine" = "latest"
"choco:visualstudio2022buildtools" = "117.12.0"mise bootstrap packages apply --manager choco --dry-run
mise bootstrap packages apply --manager chocoPrerequisites
Install Chocolatey first. The manager is available on Windows when choco.exe is on PATH. On other machines, choco: entries show as skipped, so one config can hold packages for several platforms.
Chocolatey installs into machine-wide locations, so apply and upgrade must run in an elevated (administrator) terminal. mise does not bypass UAC or elevate Chocolatey itself, and it reports Chocolatey failures unchanged. status only reads Chocolatey's local package list and works without elevation.
mise bootstrap remote needs a POSIX shell on the target and cannot drive a native Windows host, so run mise bootstrap on the Windows machine itself. For per-user apps, use the scoop manager; for the Windows Package Manager, use winget.
Package names
Use the package ID that choco search shows or that appears in the community repository. mise passes the ID as given and matches installed packages by exact ID, never a fuzzy match. Chocolatey IDs are case-insensitive; spell each ID the same way everywhere to avoid conflicting declarations.
Version pins
mise passes a pin to Chocolatey as --version for both apply and upgrade. It must match Chocolatey's version string exactly. A pin below the installed version downgrades the package, so mise adds --allow-downgrade. Run choco search <id> --exact --all-versions to list the available versions. A "latest" entry is satisfied by any installed version; use upgrade to move it to the newest.
What mise runs
| Operation | Command |
|---|---|
| Check installed state | choco list --local-only --exact --limit-output <id> |
| Install | choco install <id> [--version <pin> --allow-downgrade] --yes --no-progress |
| Upgrade | choco upgrade <id> [--version <pin> --allow-downgrade] --yes --no-progress |
mise runs Chocolatey once per package. Chocolatey 2.x lists only local packages and may reject --local-only, so mise retries the query without it. Chocolatey has no separate metadata refresh, so --update changes nothing. A package that installs but asks for a reboot (exit code 1641 or 3010) counts as installed, and mise warns that the reboot is still pending.
Remove packages
mise does not support state = "absent", import, or prune for Chocolatey packages. Deleting an entry leaves the package installed; run choco uninstall yourself.