Install, version 0.18.0
One command, then hello.
Two installers, one per family: a POSIX shell script over curl and tar, and a PowerShell one. Each picks the release for your machine, checks it against the checksums the release publishes before it unpacks anything, and leaves a compiler with nothing to configure. The second line runs the first sample it shipped with.
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iyilang/iyi/master/install.sh | sh ~/.local/bin/iyi run ~/.local/share/iyi/samples/hello.iyi
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iyilang/iyi/master/install.ps1 | iex & "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\iyi\bin\iyi.exe" run "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\iyi\share\iyi\samples\hello.iyi"
What it does
- Picks the archive for your machine.linux-x86_64 or darwin-arm64, or the windows-x86_64 zip. Anything else is refused by name, with a pointer to building from source.
- Follows the latest release on GitHub.Today that is 0.18.0, from 2026-10-18.
IYI_VERSION=0.18.0pins one. - Checks what it downloaded.Against the release's own checksums, and unpacks nothing when they disagree. The download page quotes both installers doing it.
- Unpacks into ~/.local.Or into
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\iyion Windows, where it also adds bin to your PATH and needs no administrator.IYI_PREFIXmoves either one.
What you get
- The compiler.And the same binary under Crystal's name for .cr files.
- Both libraries.iyi's own, 932 KB on disk, and Crystal's standard library for
iyi build --crystal, so your shards work from the first minute. - The samples.Under share/iyi/samples, the programs the lessons are built on.
- The tools.
iyi check, fix, test, doc, mod, lsp and mcp, all one binary. - Nothing to configure.LLVM is inside the binary. What no archive brings is a C toolchain: a program is linked by cc, and on Windows by cl.exe, so that machine needs the Visual C++ build tools. The compiler finds them and the Windows SDK through the registry, so no developer prompt and nothing on PATH is needed, and the installer says so when the toolset is missing.
By hand
The installer does two things you can do yourself. Download the archive for your machine and unpack it.
tar -xzf iyi-0.18.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz -C ~/.local ~/.local/bin/iyi run ~/.local/share/iyi/samples/hello.iyi
Expand-Archive iyi-0.18.0-windows-x86_64.zip -DestinationPath "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\iyi" & "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\iyi\bin\iyi.exe" run "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\iyi\share\iyi\samples\hello.iyi"
Older versions, and the notes for each, are under releases. The checksums are published beside them.
From source
Other platforms, or the current tree rather than a release: clone the repository and make. It needs a Crystal compiler to bootstrap from and LLVM; the README's Getting it section names the versions and every command.