Installation

Supported Operating Systems

Linux
macOS

Windows / MSVC is not supported. See architecture.md for the full scope.

Install Methods

From crates.io. Cabin is published as the cabinpkg package on crates.io. With a Rust toolchain on $PATH, run:

sh cargo install cabinpkg

The installed command is cabin. - From a third-party package manager. Community-maintained packages — not provided or endorsed by the Cabin maintainers. The Repology badge above tracks downstream availability as it appears. - From source. See INSTALL.md for the prerequisites and build steps. Use this when you need an unreleased revision or want to verify a build locally.

Runtime Requirements

cabin itself has no required runtime dependencies, but the subcommands that drive the C / C++ toolchain need the relevant tools installed on $PATH. Each tool only matters for the subcommand it backs:

Tool	Required by	Override
GCC- or Clang-style C++ compiler (`c++`, `clang++`, `g++`)	`cabin build` / `cabin run` / `cabin test` / `cabin tidy` / `cabin metadata` / `cabin explain build-config`	`CXX`
GCC- or Clang-style C compiler (`cc`, `clang`, `gcc`)	the same commands when the selected targets contain `.c` sources	`CC`
`ar` archiver	`cabin build` / `cabin run` / `cabin test` / `cabin tidy` / `cabin metadata` / `cabin explain build-config`	`AR`
Ninja (≥ 1.10)	`cabin build` / `cabin run` / `cabin test`	`NINJA`
`pkg-config`	targets that declare `system = true` dependencies	`CABIN_PKG_CONFIG`
`clang-format`	`cabin fmt`	`CABIN_FMT`
`run-clang-tidy`	`cabin tidy`	`CABIN_TIDY`

cabin resolve, cabin update, cabin tree, and the graph-only cabin explain subcommands (package, target, source, and feature) do not require a compiler, archiver, or Ninja.

The C++ compiler and archiver are resolved when Cabin renders or plans a build configuration. The C compiler is resolved opportunistically and becomes required when the selected targets contain .c sources. cabin metadata and cabin explain build-config report toolchain details, so they need the required tool slots for that build configuration to be resolvable; their --version capability probes are fail-soft after resolution succeeds. Ninja is only invoked by commands that actually run the Ninja backend. See toolchains.md for compiler selection precedence and capability detection.