---
slug: moon-v2-beta
title: Beta release of moon v2 now available!
authors: [milesj]
tags: [beta, major, release, v2]
---

About two weeks ago we announced the [alpha release of moon v2](/blog/moon-v2-alpha), and today we
are excited to share that the beta is now available! With the beta, we've made significant progress
towards stabilizing the new architecture and features introduced in v2.

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## How to use

You can install the beta with proto (>= 0.54.1), or download it directly from the
[GitHub release page](https://github.com/moonrepo/moon/releases/tag/v2.0.0-beta.0).

```shell
$ proto install moon 2.0.0-beta.1
```

Alternatively, you can try using the new experimental shell install scripts. Be warned that these
haven't been tested thoroughly yet!

```shell
# Unix
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/moonrepo/moon/releases/download/v2.0.0-beta.0/moon_cli-installer.sh | sh

# Windows
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/moonrepo/moon/releases/download/v2.0.0-beta.0/moon_cli-installer.ps1 | iex"
```

## What's changed since alpha?

We've been hard at work the past few weeks working on the following:

- The `@moonrepo` npm packages have been updated (and published) to support v2. Additionally, they
  are now published using OIDC tokens for improved security, and now support provenance.
- The official shell install scripts have been updated to support v2, but "latest" does not point to
  v2 yet. This means that the `moonrepo/setup-toolchain` GitHub Action can now point to v2.
- Updated the task `command` and `args` settings with a
  [new parser](https://github.com/moonrepo/starbase/tree/master/crates/args) that better handles
  shell syntax, preserves quoting, and much more. We've also made a breaking change where these
  settings now only allow simple commands, and `script` should be used for compound commands (pipes,
  redirects, etc).
- Updated the task `envFile` option to support token/var expansion.
- Handful of bug fixes and performance improvements.

## What's still in progress?

There are still some features and improvements that are not yet complete. Here are some of the
things we are still working on:

- Rewriting the [Python toolchain](https://github.com/moonrepo/plugins/pull/101) as a WASM plugin.
  Because this is incomplete, Python is currently not supported in the v2 alpha.
- Auditing open issues and PRs to see what else needs to be done before the stable release.
