Install

Chelis ships a rustup-style toolchain manager (chelisup) and a one-command project orchestrator (chelis reef setup). Most users want this path.

Install chelisup

During private pre-launch, bootstrap via an authenticated gh:

gh release download --repo Chelis-Lang/chelis --pattern chelisup.sh --output - | sh

Or from a local checkout:

sh crates/chelisup/bootstrap/chelisup.sh

Both paths drop ~/.chelis/bin/chelisup and print the PATH line to add to your shell rc:

export PATH="$HOME/.chelis/bin:$PATH"

Install a toolchain

Toolchains install side-by-side under ~/.chelis/toolchains/<ver>:

chelisup install 0.16.1

Set a default:

chelisup default 0.16.1

List installed toolchains:

chelisup list-installed
chelisup show

Provision a project

Clone a Chelis shell repo and bring all its dependencies to the pinned versions in one command:

cd my-shell && chelis reef setup

chelis reef setup reads the project's reef.toml pin and brings every dependency class to it: the toolchain (auto-installed via chelisup), source packages and binary artifacts (reef install --from-lockfile), and chelis source crates (reef src sync). It prints a chelis reef doctor summary when done.

Version resolution

A small chelis shim resolves the active toolchain at each call. First match wins:

1. Leading +<ver> on the command: chelis +0.13.0 build main.ch
2. CHELIS_TOOLCHAIN environment variable
3. A chelis-toolchain file in the current or ancestor directory
4. The nearest reef.toml compiler = pin
5. The recorded default (chelisup default <ver>)

A resolved but not installed version is a loud error, never a silent fallback.

Prebuilt binaries

Chelis distributes as downloadable prebuilt binaries for macOS and Linux, arm64 and x86-64, in CPU-only, AMD (HIP), and NVIDIA variants. See the Chelis-Lang GitHub org for available releases.

Build from source

If you need to build the compiler from a checkout (contributors or local development):

Rust toolchain. The repo pins its toolchain in rust-toolchain.toml (stable, with rustfmt and clippy). Rustup installs it automatically on first cargo invocation:

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

C toolchain (for the C backend):

Fedora / RHEL:

sudo dnf install gcc openblas-devel valgrind

Ubuntu / Debian:

sudo apt-get install gcc libopenblas-dev valgrind

macOS:

xcode-select --install

Supported macOS paths:

• Default: Apple clang + Accelerate (vecLib). Supported out of the box on Apple Silicon.
• Optional: Homebrew GCC for OpenMP-enabled CPU loops (brew install gcc).

Build and test:

cargo build --workspace --all-targets
cargo test --workspace

Build just the CLI:

cargo build -p chelis-cli
export PATH="$PWD/target/debug:$PATH"
chelis --help