Shell Activation 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:

[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:

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

mise bootstrap shell apply           # writes missing/different blocks
mise bootstrap shell apply --dry-run # print the edits instead
mise bootstrap shell 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.