• go to the Mac App Store and install Xcode

• Download and install Nodejs (https://nodejs.org/en/download/)
  • LTS and Stable releases should both work

• Install homebridge globally

  • sudo npm -g install homebridge

• Install plugins globally

  • sudo npm -g install [name of plugin]

• Create and edit the Homebridge configuration file ~/.homebridge/config.json

  • Please refer to the Homebridge Readme and individual plugin instructions on creating the config.json file

• Run Homebridge from terminal to make sure everything is set up correctly

  • homebridge

• Create a launchd plist file for Homebridge in ~/Library/LaunchAgents

  • Example name com.homebridge.server.plist

• Homebridge will now start automatically at boot and will restart if it crashes.

• Run the following in a terminal to manually start homebridge background process:

  • launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.homebridge.server.plist

• Run the following in a terminal to manually stop homebridge background process:

  • launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.homebridge.server.plist

Contents of com.homebridge.server.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.homebridge.server</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/homebridge</string>
        <string>-I</string>
    </array>
    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
            <key>PATH</key>
            <string>/usr/local/bin/:$PATH</string>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Periodically, plugins or homebridge may be updated. To see if there are any updates you can run the following command to see what is available:

npm -g outdated

To update a particular plugin or homebridge itself, run:

sudo npm -g update [homebridge | name-of-plugin]

To force an update, you can re-install it to force the latest version:

sudo npm -g install [homebridge | name-of-plugin]