But why would it need all of those dependencies?

Because all dependency managers at some point devolve to "install ocean, then boil ocean".

(If you care, "brew deps <package> --tree" will tell you.)

brew deps eza --tree prints:

eza

└── libgit2

    ├── libssh2

    │   └── openssl@3

    │       └── ca-certificates

    └── openssl@3

        └── ca-certificates

From what I can tell, it doesn't:

  $ brew deps --include-build eza
  autoconf
  automake
  ca-certificates
  cabal-install
  certifi
  cmake
  ghc
  ghc@9.8
  libgit2
  libssh2
  llvm@18
  lz4
  m4
  mpdecimal
  ninja
  openssl@3
  pandoc
  pkg-config
  python@3.11
  python@3.12
  readline
  rust
  sphinx-doc
  sqlite
  xz
  zstd

Because most of those are dependencies required to build the actual dependencies.

There's (generally) 4 types of dependencies:

    - Toolchains (frameworks, compilers)
    - Build (headers and libraries)
    - Runtime (libraries)
    - Test (frameworks, headers, libraries)

And those dependencies all bring their own dependencies...

MacBook Air M2 2022, macOS Sequoia 15.0

Your Homebrew may not be configured to pull only the runtime dependencies; as others in this thread have mentioned, it's pulling in all those dependencies becauase it's building "eza" (or something, perhaps one of "eza"'s few transitives) from source, which brings in quite the list, including openjdk as you saw.

Homebrew can accidentally end up configured to do this in a number of ways. Some of these may no longer be issues; this list is from memory and should be taken with a grain of salt:

- You might be running an outdated homebrew.

- You might have homebrew checked out as a git checkout, thus missing "brew update" abilities. "brew doctor" will report on this.

- You might have "inherited" your Homebrew install from a prior Mac (e.g. via disk clone or Time Machine), or from the brief transitional period where Homebrew was x86-via-Rosetta on ARM macs, thus leaving your brew in a situation where it can't find prebuilt packages ("bottles") for what it observes as a hybrid/unique platform. Tools, including your shell, which install Homebrew for you might install it as the wrong (rosetta-emulated) architecture if any process-spawning part of the tool is an x86-only binary. More details on a similar situation I found myself in are here: https://blog.zacbentley.com/post/dtrace-macos/

- (I'm pretty sure most issues in this area have been fixed, but) you might have an old or "inherited" XCode or XCode CLT installation. These, too, can propagate from backups. Removing Homebrew, uninstalling/reinstalling XCode/CLT, and reinstalling Homebrew can help with this.

- The HOMEBREW_ARCH, HOMEBREW_ARTIFACT_DOMAIN, HOMEBREW_BOTTLE_DOMAIN, or other environment variables may be set in your shell such that Homebrew either thinks the platform doesn't have bottles available or it shouldn't download them: https://docs.brew.sh/Manpage#environment

- Perhaps obvious, but your "brew" command might be invoked such that it always builds from source, e.g. via a shell alias.

- Homebrew may be unable to access the bottle repository (https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/), either due to a network/firewall issue or a temporary outage.

Your (awesome) comment reminds me...

Noob me has had to troubleshoot homebrew. Like keeping laptop and desktop in sync. Like fixing stuff I've somehow borked.

So I tried a handful of GUIs (wrappers). Like these two top hits:

https://corkmac.app/

https://aerolite.dev/applite

But sort of bounced off.

Noob friendly homebrew seems like such a great idea. I especially want just one strategy which spans both utils and apps (casks). Versus cobbling together Apple App Store, SetApp, and homebrew.

Those GUIs would be even more useful if they spotted and explained the config issues you listed. (I have no idea if "brew doctor" suffices.)

Thank you for such a comprehensive guide! I’ll try to resolve the issue today with your help

You’re welcome! One more issue that I missed calling out: a bottle may not yet be available for your platform (Sequoia) as it is very new. In that case, patience.