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$DUB_HOME

$DUB_HOME is an environment variable that can be used to override

  1. change the default location for user settings (~/.dub/settings.json)
  2. change the path for the user-wide packages and cache (~/.dub/packages, ~/.dub/cache)

Behavior

If either $DUB_HOME or $DPATH is set as environment variable, DUB will use them as highest priority for overriding user-wide settings loading and cache locations.

If $DPATH is defined, $DUB_HOME defaults to $DPATH/dub.

It's possible to specify a custom dubHome in the system-wide settings to change both settings and cache behavior. In the per-user or per-package config it's possible to set the dubHome setting to override the cache behavior.

See also: User Settings.

$DPATH

$DPATH is a proposed, general-purpose environment variable intended to provide a shared user-wide base path for all D-related tools and applications.

Under this scheme:

  • $DPATH defines a top-level directory where D tools can store user data.
  • DUB uses $DPATH/dub as its default if $DUB_HOME is not explicitly set.
  • Future D tools (compilers, build systems, editors, etc.) could also use $DPATH to manage their global installations or configurations.

Note: While $DPATH support is planned (and already integrated in some community builds), full adoption across D tooling is still under discussion in the D installer PRs.

Using $DPATH consistently would make D’s ecosystem more cohesive, simplifying multi-tool management and allowing centralized user-level storage of compilers, packages, and configurations.

Settings override

Specifying a DUB_HOME or DPATH as environment variable or from system-wide settings makes DUB read user settings from there instead of from $DPATH/dub/ or %APPDATA%\dub\.

The only file read from here is $DUB_HOME/settings.json.

Cache override

Specifying a DUB_HOME or DPATH as environment variable or from any settings (system-wide, user-wide, package-wide) changes where user packages and where the package cache are stored.

This overrides the behavior that it would store packages in ~/.dub/packages and store cache in ~/.dub/cache to other paths.

On Windows these cache paths default to %LOCALAPPDATA%\dub\ instead of %APPDATA%\dub\. It's currently not possible to specify separate path overrides for user-wide cache, packages and settings.

Last update: October 18, 2025
Created: September 1, 2023