zsh: command not found: brew

My first time setting up git on my Macbook was a few years ago. My second time was this week, and I faced the same error I faced the first time, except I didn’t take note of how I fixed it. So I am writing this short article, hoping that the next time I face this issue again, I know where to find a possible solution.

So basically, I’m writing this for me. However, if anyone else faces this error and this helps them too, then that is a bonus.

Setting up git on a new laptop

1. Go to the git download page here.

Download the appropriate version according to your device.

Since I am using a Macbook, I download the version for Mac.

To download, first install homebrew by running in your
terminal:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

2. According to the documentation, after installing homebrew, in your terminal, run:

brew install git

Except, once I run this, it throws an error:
zsh: command not found: brew

However, running git --version confirmed I had git installed:

git --version

git version 2.39.3 (Apple Git-146)

It became clear that homebrew was not added to the PATH variable during installation, therefore shell could not locate the homebrew executable.

To rectify this, add homebrew to the PATH variable by doing the following:

export PATH="/opt/homebrew/bin:$PATH"

Hit the Enter key.

echo $PATH

in your terminal to confirm if homebrew was successfully added to the PATH variable.

This returns a list of all the executables found on your laptop. Confirm that homebrew is present in the list. If it is, your terminal will now be able to locate homebrew.

3. Now, in your terminal, run brew install git again and hit Enter

brew install git

Wait patiently for the download to complete.

You have successfully installed git on your laptop. You can now continue on to set up git in VS Code. Check out this documentation on how to do that.