Upgrading a formula makes it installed_on_request

[injust]

Output of brew config

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 4.4.4
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
HEAD: 824efa8836dc226aa92dbbf7404c1b4a66707cca
Last commit: 3 days ago
Core tap JSON: 07 Nov 06:48 UTC
Core cask tap JSON: 07 Nov 06:48 UTC
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /usr/local
HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS: []
HOMEBREW_EDITOR: micro
HOMEBREW_GITHUB_API_TOKEN: set
HOMEBREW_MAKE_JOBS: 8
Homebrew Ruby: 3.3.5 => /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/vendor/portable-ruby/3.3.5/bin/ruby
CPU: octa-core 64-bit kabylake
Clang: 16.0.0 build 1600
Git: 2.47.0 => /usr/local/bin/git
Curl: 8.7.1 => /usr/bin/curl
macOS: 15.1-x86_64
CLT: 16.1.0.0.1.1729049160
Xcode: N/A

Output of brew doctor

Please note that these warnings are just used to help the Homebrew maintainers
with debugging if you file an issue. If everything you use Homebrew for is
working fine: please don't worry or file an issue; just ignore this. Thanks!

Warning: Putting non-prefixed findutils in your path can cause python builds to fail.

Warning: Homebrew's "sbin" was not found in your PATH but you have installed
formulae that put executables in /usr/local/sbin.
Consider setting your PATH for example like so:
  fish_add_path /usr/local/sbin

Description of issue

After brew upgradeing a dependency, it becomes installed_on_request. Because of this, upgrading dependencies make them appear in my Brewfile.

After reading Homebrew/brew#3642, it makes sense to me that this happens for brew install, but not for brew upgrade.

I suspect that this behaviour was introduced in Homebrew/brew#3653, which actually calls it out:

It would be nice if the Tab returned from for_formula when the formula isn't installed didn't look like a real one that had been installed on request…

[SMillerDev]

I just checked with @carlocab, and it doesn't seem to quite work that way. It only marks the formula like that if you run brew upgrade <formula>, but not if you just brew upgrade.

[carlocab]

If you did brew upgrade foo, then foo will be marked as installed_on_request. If you did an unqualified brew upgrade (or foo was upgraded by doing, e.g., brew upgrade bar), and foo was still marked as installed_on_request, then that seems like a bug worth opening an issue for.

If you want to undo foo being marked as installed_on_request, use brew tab:

Usage: brew tab [options] installed_formula|installed_cask [...]

Edit tab information for installed formulae or casks.

This can be useful when you want to control whether an installed formula should
be removed by brew autoremove. To prevent removal, mark the formula as
installed on request; to allow removal, mark the formula as not installed on
request.

      --installed-on-request       Mark installed_formula or installed_cask
                                   as installed on request.
      --no-installed-on-request    Mark installed_formula or installed_cask
                                   as not installed on request.
      --formula, --formulae        Only mark formulae.
      --cask, --casks              Only mark casks.
  -d, --debug                      Display any debugging information.
  -q, --quiet                      Make some output more quiet.
  -v, --verbose                    Make some output more verbose.
  -h, --help                       Show this message.

[injust]

Thanks for the clarification. I want to say I ran an unqualified brew upgrade, but I'm not 100% sure.

I'll close this for now, but will reopen if I can repro with brew upgrade later.

[gromgit]

I think the real issue is that there have been (and will continue to be) quite a few posted issues where the recommended solution was in fact brew reinstall/upgrade XYZ. When applied to common dependencies like icu4c, which would normally never be installed manually, this (unnecessarily, IMO) marks them as "installed on request" automatically.

For instance, in a fresh Homebrew Docker image:

linuxbrew@e441cf1b09d1:~$ brew install imagemagick
[...]
==> Installing imagemagick
==> Pouring imagemagick--7.1.1-39.x86_64_linux.bottle.tar.gz
🍺  /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Cellar/imagemagick/7.1.1-39: 815 files, 34.2MB
==> Running `brew cleanup imagemagick`...
Disable this behaviour by setting HOMEBREW_NO_INSTALL_CLEANUP.
Hide these hints with HOMEBREW_NO_ENV_HINTS (see `man brew`).

linuxbrew@e441cf1b09d1:~$ brew bundle dump --global --force
linuxbrew@e441cf1b09d1:~$ cat .Brewfile 
tap "homebrew/bundle"
tap "homebrew/core"
brew "imagemagick"

# oops, there was an aom issue fixed in PR, so I was told to reinstall it
linuxbrew@e441cf1b09d1:~$ brew reinstall aom
[...]
==> Reinstalling aom 
==> Pouring aom--3.10.0.x86_64_linux.bottle.tar.gz
🍺  /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/Cellar/aom/3.10.0: 24 files, 14.3MB
==> Running `brew cleanup aom`...
Disable this behaviour by setting HOMEBREW_NO_INSTALL_CLEANUP.
Hide these hints with HOMEBREW_NO_ENV_HINTS (see `man brew`).

linuxbrew@e441cf1b09d1:~$ brew bundle dump --global --force
linuxbrew@e441cf1b09d1:~$ cat .Brewfile 
tap "homebrew/bundle"
tap "homebrew/core"
brew "aom"
brew "imagemagick"

And yes, brew tab --no-installed-on-request aom can be used to mitigate this, but it's a manual step that's super easy to forget about.