Installation

Kiwi runs on Linux, macOS and Windows, on x64 and arm64. Each release has a prebuilt, self-contained binary for every platform, so you don’t need .NET to run it.

Install script

Linux and macOS:

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fuseraft/kiwi/main/install.sh | bash

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fuseraft/kiwi/main/install.ps1 | iex

The installer downloads the latest release for your platform, checks it against the release’s SHA-256 checksums, installs the binary and the standard library, and adds kiwi to your PATH. Open a new terminal and check that it worked:

kiwi --version

Installer options

Pass options to change where and how Kiwi is installed. With the one-line install, put them after bash -s --:

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fuseraft/kiwi/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --version=1.8.0

Option	Effect
--user	Install for the current user in ~/.kiwi (the default).
--system	Install system-wide in /opt/kiwi and link /usr/local/bin/kiwi. Needs sudo.
--prefix=PATH	Install into a directory of your choice.
--version=X.Y.Z	Install that release instead of the latest.
--source	Build from source instead of downloading a release. Needs the .NET 10 SDK.
--url=URL	Download a binary from a URL, with the standard library from the main branch.
--use-existing	Install the binary already in ./bin/ instead of building.
--update	Remove the current install and install the latest version.
--uninstall	Remove Kiwi.

install.ps1 takes the same options in PowerShell form: -System, -Prefix PATH, -Version X.Y.Z, -Source, -Update, -Uninstall.

./install.sh --system
./install.sh --prefix=/usr/local
./install.sh --uninstall

If the latest release has no binary for your platform, the installer builds Kiwi from source when the .NET 10 SDK is installed. For an older release without one, pass --source with --version. A download that doesn’t match its checksum, or a binary that can’t start on your system, is never installed, and an existing install is left as it was.

Download a release

Each release has an archive for each platform, and a SHA256SUMS file to check them against:

Platform	Archive
Linux x64	kiwi-linux-x64.tar.gz
Linux arm64	kiwi-linux-arm64.tar.gz
macOS Apple silicon	kiwi-osx-arm64.tar.gz
macOS Intel	kiwi-osx-x64.tar.gz
Windows x64	kiwi-win-x64.zip

Each archive holds a kiwi directory with bin/ and lib/. Unpack it anywhere and run kiwi/bin/kiwi:

curl -sSLO https://github.com/fuseraft/kiwi/releases/latest/download/kiwi-linux-x64.tar.gz
tar -xzf kiwi-linux-x64.tar.gz
./kiwi/bin/kiwi --version

The Linux binaries need glibc 2.34 or later, as on Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 and RHEL 9 or newer, and the ICU library (libicu), which most distributions install by default. Alpine and other musl-based distributions aren’t supported.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/fuseraft/kiwi.git
cd kiwi
./build.sh

build.sh detects your platform, tries an ahead-of-time (AOT) native build, and falls back to a trimmed self-contained build if AOT is not available. Either way the result is ./bin/kiwi. To target a specific platform, pass a runtime identifier: linux-x64, linux-arm64, osx-x64, osx-arm64 or win-x64.

./build.sh linux-arm64

On Windows, use build.ps1 instead.

To run kiwi from anywhere without the installer, link the binary onto your PATH:

mkdir -p ~/bin
ln -sf "$(pwd)/bin/kiwi" ~/bin/kiwi

Note

The binary finds the standard library through kiwi-settings.json, which sits next to it and points at ../lib. Keep bin/ and lib/ side by side, or use --stdlib-path to point somewhere else.

Run the test suite

The test suite is written in Kiwi. Run it after building to make sure everything works:

./bin/kiwi tests/test

It exits with 0 when every test passes.

Docker

The repository includes a Dockerfile that builds Kiwi and packages it with the standard library:

docker build -t kiwi .
docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/scripts kiwi /scripts/hello.kiwi
docker run --rm -it kiwi    # start the REPL

Editor support

The Kiwi extension for Visual Studio Code adds syntax highlighting and snippets. Install it from the Quick Open prompt (Ctrl+P):

ext install fuseraft.kiwi-lang

Packages

Zest is Kiwi’s package manager. It installs packages from GitHub with semver constraints and a lock file:

zest install owner/repo

Next steps

Take the tour for a quick look at the whole language.