Apple quietly added a mysterious /pkg directory to every Mac's PATH

What the heck is /pkg?

While troubleshooting a PATH issue, the author spotted an unfamiliar /pkg/env/global/bin entry and found a root-level /pkg directory with env, etc, inv, and var subdirectories. Howard Oakley traces it to macOS 26.4 on the Data volume, arriving on the Signed System Volume in 27.0. Apple added it via a new 10-pmk-global file in /etc/paths.d, yet nobody knows what it's for. The best guess: a future first-party package manager.