Getting Started

This guide covers the one-time setup required to install all the tools and dependencies you need to build and run Chipmunk.

Prerequisites

Installing Rust

The recommended way to install Rust is by using rustup, the official Rust version manager. Run the following command in your terminal:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

This command downloads and runs the rustup installer. After installation, you can verify the installed Rust version by running:

rustc --version

which should print the Rust version on terminal.

Installing NodeJS

We recommend using NVM (Node Version Manager) to install and manage Node.js versions. Please follow the NVM installation guide first.

Once NVM is installed and configured, you can install the latest Long Term Support (LTS) version of Node.js by running:

nvm install --lts

Verify that Node.js is installed correctly by running:

node -v

This will print the installed Node.js version in your terminal.

Installing Yarn

Chipmunk uses Yarn for managing frontend dependencies. While the project specifies a particular Yarn version via Corepack, our current setup still checks for a global Yarn installation.

First, install Yarn globally using npm:

npm install -g yarn

Additionally, this project enforces a required Yarn version specified in its package.json file to ensure consistent dependency management across all development environments. To automatically use this project-defined version, you need to enable Corepack:

corepack enable

Enabling Corepack ensures that when you run yarn commands within the Chipmunk project directory, NodeJS will automatically use the version specified by the project, even if a different version is installed globally.

Installing Project Dependencies

This project relies on external dependencies for both the Rust backend and the Electron/Node.js frontend. To install all necessary project dependencies and tools, run the following script from the repository root:

sh developing/scripts/install.sh

This script will handle installing dependencies required for building and running Chipmunk.

Installing the Development CLI

This project uses a custom tool, cargo chipmunk, to manage development tasks. To install it, navigate to the repository root and run:

cargo install --path cli/development--cli

After installation, verify it was successful by checking the version:

cargo chipmunk --version

For a complete list of commands, please refer to the dedicated CLI documentation.

Verify Your Setup

To confirm that the development environment and all dependencies are correctly installed, run the following command. It will check your setup and print a list of all required tools and their detected versions.

cargo chipmunk env list

If the command runs without errors and you see the list of versions, your setup is complete!

Next Steps

To learn about the daily workflow for building, running, and testing the application, please proceed to the next guide: Development Guide