Installation

Why This Matters

A clean toolchain setup removes most early friction. Goal: get to a stable arden --help, arden check, and arden run loop fast.

Prerequisites

Rust toolchain (for building from source)
LLVM + linker requirements for your platform

Build From Source

From repo root:

cargo build --release

Compiler binary path:

target/release/arden

Verify Installation

./target/release/arden --version
./target/release/arden --help

Run a smoke example:

./target/release/arden run examples/single_file/basics/01_hello/01_hello.arden

Run CLI smoke bundle:

CI_SKIP_COMPILER_BUILD=1 ARDEN_COMPILER_PATH=target/release/arden bash scripts/cli_smoke.sh

Platform Notes

This repository uses explicit linker policy:

Linux: mold
macOS: LLVM lld
Windows: LLVM lld-link

If build/link fails, verify linker and LLVM setup first.

Portable Artifacts

CI release workflows also produce portable bundles (linux/macOS/windows) containing compiler + expected runtime tooling. Use them when you want quick install without local Rust build.

Download locations:

website installer page: arden-lang.dev/install
GitHub latest release assets: github.com/TheRemyyy/arden-lang/releases/latest

Quick portable flow:

download the matching archive for your OS/CPU from latest release assets
extract it
run the included launcher (arden / arden.bat depending on bundle)
verify with arden --version and arden --help

Portable asset names currently used:

arden-windows-x64-portable.zip
arden-linux-x64-portable.tar.gz
arden-macos-arm64-portable.tar.gz
arden-macos-x64-portable.tar.gz

Direct latest-download URL pattern:

https://github.com/TheRemyyy/arden-lang/releases/latest/download/<ASSET_NAME>

Optional checksum verification:

curl -LO https://github.com/TheRemyyy/arden-lang/releases/latest/download/SHA256SUMS.txt
sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS.txt

Common Setup Problems

compiler builds, but arden path points to old binary
missing linker on platform-specific target
running project commands outside project root (arden.toml missing)

Next Step

Continue with Quick Start.