Install Aura

Aura 0.6 ships as a self-contained command-line tool with its own private native runtime. Pick the guide for the operating system where aura will run:

Platform	Release archive	Guide
macOS 15, Apple silicon	aarch64-apple-darwin	Install on macOS
macOS 15, Intel	x86_64-apple-darwin	Install on macOS
Ubuntu 24.04 or compatible glibc Linux, x86-64	x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu	Install on Linux
Windows 11, x86-64	Linux archive inside WSL 2	Install on Windows with WSL

Every guide follows the same three steps.

1. Run the installer. It detects the supported archive, verifies its SHA-256 checksum, and installs under ~/.local.

curl -fsSL https://johnolafenwa.github.io/Aura/install.sh | sh

2. Add ~/.local/bin to PATH.

3. Verify the result in the same terminal:

aura --version

The output begins with aura 0.6.0-preview. The rest of the line is the source commit the binary was built from.

What Gets Installed

The default layout is:

~/.local/
├── bin/aura
├── lib/aura/
│   ├── libaura_runtime.a
│   └── native-link-args.json
└── share/aura/
    ├── examples/
    ├── README.md
    └── LICENSE

To install under a different prefix, set AURA_INSTALL_PREFIX:

AURA_INSTALL_PREFIX="$HOME/tools/aura" \
  sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://johnolafenwa.github.io/Aura/install.sh)"

Then add that prefix's bin directory to PATH.

Editor Setup

Once the CLI works, install the Aura Programming Language extension. The extension provides the editor client, syntax grammar, and snippets. Diagnostics, completion, hover, definitions, and symbols come from the compiler through the installed aura lsp server.

Native Builds

aura run and aura check work as soon as the archive is installed. Direct native execution and aura build also need a host C toolchain:

• macOS: Xcode command-line tools
• Ubuntu and WSL: build-essential

Each platform guide gives the exact commands.

Next Step

Continue with Getting Aura Running to create a source file, run it, check it, and build a native executable.