Install Aura On macOS

Aura publishes separate macOS 15 archives for Apple silicon and Intel Macs. The installer uses uname to pick the right one.

1. Confirm The Mac Architecture

Open Terminal and run:

uname -m

• arm64 means Apple silicon.
• x86_64 means Intel.

Both are supported. No other macOS architecture has a release archive.

2. Install Aura

The installer uses curl, tar, and shasum, which macOS already includes:

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

The script downloads the matching v0.6.0-preview archive. It checks the archive against the release's SHA256SUMS file before it copies anything into the installation prefix.

3. Add Aura To zsh

If aura --version already works, ~/.local/bin is already on PATH and you can skip this step.

Aura installs to ~/.local/bin/aura by default. Add that directory to your zsh login environment. You only need to do this once:

grep -qxF 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' "$HOME/.zshrc" || \
  printf '%s\n' 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> "$HOME/.zshrc"
source "$HOME/.zshrc"

4. Verify The Installation

command -v aura
aura --version

The command path ends in .local/bin/aura. The version begins with:

aura 0.6.0-preview

5. Run A Program

Create hello.au:

def main():
    print("hello from Aura on macOS")

Run it:

aura run hello.au

6. Enable Native Builds

aura run uses the default MIR execution path, which does not need Xcode. MIR is Aura's mid-level intermediate representation. Direct native execution and aura build need Apple's linker and C toolchain. Install them:

xcode-select --install

When the installer finishes, verify the toolchain, then build and run:

xcode-select -p
aura build -o hello hello.au
./hello

Upgrade Aura

To upgrade the installed CLI and runtime to the current published preview:

aura upgrade
aura --version

aura upgrade keeps the active install prefix. It uses the same verified installer as a fresh installation.

Troubleshooting

aura: command not found

Check that the file exists, then reload the shell:

ls -l "$HOME/.local/bin/aura"
source "$HOME/.zshrc"

The installer reports an unsupported architecture

Run uname -m. Aura publishes macOS archives only for arm64 and x86_64.

Native linking fails

Run xcode-select -p. If it fails, install or repair the Xcode command-line tools before you use aura build or --backend direct.

Continue with the VS Code extension guide or Getting Aura Running.