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You can build hline from source if you want to contribute, customize the tool, or run the latest development version.

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Prerequisites

You need the Rust toolchain installed with the following minimum version:
  • Rust 1.78 or later
Install Rust via rustup: 
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

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Build commands

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Release build

Build an optimized binary: 
cargo build --release
The compiled binary will be at target/release/hline.
The release profile uses:
  • Thin LTO (lto = "thin")
  • Single codegen unit (codegen-units = 1)
  • Stripped symbols (strip = true)
This produces a smaller, faster binary optimized for distribution.

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Run the binary

After building, you can run hline directly: 
./target/release/hline --help
./target/release/hline --version

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Run without building

Use cargo run to compile and run in one step: 
cargo run
cargo run -- --file /path/to/history

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Running tests

Run the test suite: 
cargo test --all-targets

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Quality checks

Before submitting code changes, run these checks:

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Format check

cargo fmt --all -- --check
Auto-format code: 
cargo fmt --all

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Linting

cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings
This runs the Clippy linter with all warnings treated as errors.

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Local release build

Create a release artifact with checksums using the packaging script: 
./scripts/release_local.sh
This will:
  1. Build hline for your current platform target
  2. Package the binary with README.md and LICENSE
  3. Create a .tar.gz archive
  4. Generate a SHA256 checksum file
Artifacts are written to the dist/ directory: 
ls -lah dist

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Naming format

Release archives follow this pattern: 
hline-<arch>-<target>.tar.gz
hline-<arch>-<target>.tar.gz.sha256
Example: 
hline-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
hline-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz.sha256

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Custom build target

Override the target triple: 
TARGET_TRIPLE=aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu ./scripts/release_local.sh

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