Installation

Install From Releases

For Kira 0.1.0 readiness, the normal user install flow is:

1. Download the latest release from GitHub Releases.
2. Extract the archive for your platform.
3. Add the directory containing `kira` to your shell `PATH`.
4. Open a new terminal.
5. Run `kira --version`.

The Releases page lives here:

GitHub Releases

Verify The Install

After kira --version, validate the basic workflow with a small program:

kira check path/to/main.kira
kira run path/to/main.kira
kira build path/to/main.kira

Those three commands are the minimum "is my install healthy?" smoke test:

• check validates the program
• run executes it
• build proves the native backend is available too

Native / LLVM Support

Native builds and the native half of hybrid mode depend on the pinned LLVM toolchain.

Install it with:

kira fetch-llvm

or:

zig build fetch-llvm

LLVM discovery order is:

1. KIRA_LLVM_HOME
2. ~/.kira/toolchains/llvm/<llvm-version>/<host-key>/
3. older repo-local fallback paths under .kira/, if they already exist

If you need to override the managed bundle temporarily:

export KIRA_LLVM_HOME=/path/to/llvm

Build From Source

If you are contributing to the Zig implementation itself, build from this monorepo:

zig build
zig build test

That refreshes the local development snapshot used by kira.

The most useful contributor commands are:

zig build run -- run examples/hello.kira
kira check examples/hello.kira
kira run examples/hello.kira
kira build examples/hello.kira

kira new still scaffolds minimal kira.toml + app/main.kira starter apps from the managed template.