📝 Setup instruction for `rosdep` on `macOS` is missing

[130s]

Issue Type

• [x] 🐛 Bug / Problem

Description

rosdep instruction (docs.ros.org/en/kilted) mentions:

Warning Currently rosdep only works on Linux and macOS; Windows is not supported. There are long-term plans to add support for Windows to https://github.com/ros-infrastructure/rosdep.

https://github.com/ros2/ros2_documentation/issues/1353 also says:

My understanding is that rosdep does indeed work on macOS

But I do not see any instruction documented.

Additional Context

Related docs found:

• macOS (source) (docs.ros.org/en/kilted) shows using pip, but rosdep does not seem to be used in the rest of the process in the doc, which makes me wonder if it's valid.
• https://wiki.ros.org/indigo/Installation/OSX/Homebrew/Source shows using pip (of which validity is unclear. I'm running into an error on Big Sur. Logged if curious).

[wjwwood]

I'm not sure about the current state of the macOS installation instructions for ROS 2, but rosdep definitely works on macOS. It's likely the installation instructions are out-of-date or are avoiding rosdep to avoid out-of-date rosdep rules.

Anyone working on macOS will unfortunately have to sort these issues out themselves for now. If someone wanted to figure out how to do this with rosdep and update the rosdep rules and then the install instructions for macOS that would be great.

[ros-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on Open Robotics Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/ros-news-for-the-week-of-october-6th-2025/50487/1