Installation

Supported Operating Systems

Linux (GCC / Clang)
macOS (Clang / Apple Clang)
Windows (MSVC - cl.exe / lib.exe)

On Windows the default toolchain is MSVC; a GCC/Clang-style toolchain (MinGW, clang) is not a supported configuration there (see toolchains.md for the dialect model, what is supported, and the known limitations).

Install Methods

Prebuilt binary with cargo-binstall. With cargo-binstall installed, run:
```
cargo binstall cabinpkg
```

This uses Cabin’s GitHub release archives when a matching binary is available. The installed command is cabin.

From crates.io source build. Cabin is published as the cabinpkg package on crates.io. With a Rust toolchain on $PATH, run:
```
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. Repology 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
C++ compiler - GCC/Clang (`c++`, `clang++`, `g++`) on Unix; MSVC (`cl`) on Windows	`cabin build` / `cabin run` / `cabin test` / `cabin tidy` / `cabin metadata` / `cabin explain build-config`	`CXX`
C compiler - GCC/Clang (`cc`, `clang`, `gcc`) on Unix; MSVC (`cl`) on Windows	the same commands when the selected targets contain `.c` sources	`CC`
Static-library archiver - `ar` on Unix; `lib` on Windows	`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`

On Windows, Cabin defaults to the MSVC toolchain and auto-discovers it: if cl.exe / lib.exe and the INCLUDE / LIB environment are not already present, Cabin locates the installed Visual Studio toolchain (via the find-msvc-tools crate) and supplies them for the build. A stock Visual Studio / Build Tools install therefore works without a Developer Command Prompt. You may still run from a Developer Command Prompt or a shell activated by vcvarsall.bat (or the ilammy/msvc-dev-cmd GitHub Action) to pin a specific toolset - Cabin uses an already-active environment as-is. cabin fmt and cabin tidy still shell out to clang-format / run-clang-tidy from an LLVM install, exactly as on Unix.

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 run the Ninja backend. See toolchains.md for compiler selection precedence and capability detection.