This release brings a major upgrade to mise prepare with content-hash freshness, dependency ordering, and better diagnostics. Hooks and watch files can now delegate to full mise tasks, and task vars gain monorepo inheritance and per-task overrides. Several lockfile and idiomatic version file parsing bugs are also fixed.

Highlights

• mise prepare overhaul -- Freshness detection switches from mtime to blake3 content hashing (reliable across CI and clock skew), providers can declare dependencies on each other, a new --explain flag shows detailed diagnostics, and per-provider timeouts are now supported.
• Task-backed hooks -- Hooks and watch_files can now reference mise tasks instead of inline scripts, gaining access to the full task system (deps, env, templating).
• Per-task vars and monorepo vars inheritance -- Tasks can define their own vars that override config-level vars, and monorepo subdirectory vars are now properly inherited when running tasks from the root.

Added

• Task references in hooks and watch_files -- Hooks can now use { task = "name" } syntax to run a mise task instead of an inline script. Mixed arrays of scripts and task references are supported. Task refs respect MISE_NO_HOOKS=1 and the full task system (deps, env, etc.). #8400 by @jdx

  [hooks]
  enter = { task = "setup" }
  
  [[watch_files]]
  patterns = ["uv.lock"]
  task = "uv-deps"
  

• Per-task vars and monorepo vars inheritance -- Tasks can now define task-local vars that override config-level vars for that task. Monorepo subdirectory vars are also properly inherited when running tasks from the project root, matching how env already works. #8248 by @halms

  [vars]
  greeting = "hello"
  
  [tasks.test]
  run = 'echo {{vars.greeting}}'
  vars = { greeting = "hi" }   # overrides config-level var
  

• Built-in git-submodule prepare provider -- A new built-in provider detects .gitmodules and runs git submodule update --init --recursive when submodule directories are stale. No configuration needed -- it activates automatically when .gitmodules exists. #8407 by @jdx

• Blake3 content-hash freshness for prepare -- mise prepare now uses blake3 content hashing instead of mtime comparison to determine whether providers need to run. Hashes are persisted to .mise/prepare-state.toml. This is more reliable across CI, VCS operations, and clock skew scenarios. #8404 by @jdx

• Human-readable stale reasons in prepare output -- Dry-run and status bar messages now explain why a provider would run, e.g. [dry-run] Would prepare: npm (node_modules does not exist) or prepare: codegen (schema.graphql changed) -- run 'mise prep'. #8408 by @jdx

• mise prepare --explain <provider> diagnostics -- A new --explain flag shows detailed information about a specific provider: sources, outputs, auto status, command, and a fresh/stale verdict with reasons. Exits 0 if fresh, 1 if stale, useful for scripting. #8409 by @jdx

• Per-provider timeout support for prepare -- Providers can now set a timeout in seconds. If the command exceeds the timeout it is killed. #8405 by @jdx

  [prepare.npm]
  timeout = 120  # kill after 2 minutes
  

• Dependency ordering for prepare providers -- Providers can declare depends = ["other-provider"] to enforce execution ordering. Independent providers still run in parallel. Cycle detection, failure propagation, and unknown-dep warnings are all handled. #8401 by @jdx

  [prepare.ansible-galaxy]
  depends = ["uv"]
  run = "ansible-galaxy install -f requirements.yml"
  sources = ["requirements.yml"]
  outputs = [".galaxy-installed"]
  

Fixed

• Idiomatic version files now ignore comments -- Files like .python-version, .node-version, .ruby-version, and .java-version now correctly strip # comments (both full-line and inline) and blank lines, preventing mise from treating comment text as version specifiers. #7682 by @iloveitaly

• Generic parser used for idiomatic files -- Built-in idiomatic file parsers (e.g. for package.json and raw text files) are now used consistently, preventing unexpected behavior when plugins like vfox don't support certain file formats. #8171 by @risu729

• Aqua bin_paths disk cache restored with proper invalidation -- The aqua bin_paths.msgpack.z cache removed in v2026.2.24 has been restored with fresh_file invalidation keyed on the install directory. This recovers the 7-11% performance regression on mise env and mise hook-env while keeping cache correctness. #8398 by @jdx

• Lockfile no longer splits entries for precompiled settings -- mise lock with precompiled_flavor or similar settings configured no longer produces duplicate tool entries by splitting the host platform into a separate entry. #8396 by @jdx

• Python lockfile respects precompiled settings -- mise lock now correctly uses precompiled_arch, precompiled_os, and precompiled_flavor settings when generating Python lock file entries, and precompiled_flavor is properly honored during installs. #8399 by @jdx

• "v" prefix normalized in lockfile version matching -- --locked mode no longer fails when mise.toml specifies v1.2.3 but the lockfile stores 1.2.3 (or vice versa). #8413 by @jdx

• Vfox no longer eagerly loads metadata -- Removed vfox's idiomatic_filenames() override that triggered plugin metadata loading for every config file check, and reordered detection logic so known patterns are checked first. Eliminates spurious [vfox] Getting metadata for yarn debug messages. #8397 by @jdx

• Fixed infinite recursion with uv_venv_auto and uv shims -- When uv_venv_auto = "create|source" is set and a mise shim for uv exists on PATH, venv creation no longer enters infinite subprocess recursion. The fix excludes the mise shims directory from the uv binary search. #8402 by @halms

• Improved git submodule parser for prepare -- The .gitmodules parser is now INI-section aware, only extracting path values from [submodule "..."] sections and ignoring comments. Freshness check errors now default to fresh rather than stale, preventing spurious warnings. #8412 by @jdx

Breaking Changes

• The deprecated # mise ... file task header syntax has been removed as scheduled. Only #MISE / # [MISE] / //MISE / ::MISE headers are now recognized. If you have task files still using the old # mise headers, update them to use the new syntax. #8403 by @jdx

New Contributors

• @iloveitaly made their first contribution in #7682

Full Changelog: https://github.com/jdx/mise/compare/v2026.2.24...v2026.3.0