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Prerequisites

Nash is written in Rust and requires the Rust toolchain to build from source.

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Install Rust

If you don’t have Rust installed, install it using rustup: 
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
After installation, restart your terminal or run: 
source $HOME/.cargo/env

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Verify Rust Installation

Check that you have Rust 1.75 or later: 
rustc --version
Nash requires Rust 1.75+ due to modern language features and dependencies.

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Build Nash from Source

Nash is currently distributed as source code. Follow these steps to build it:
1

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/sammwyy/nash
cd nash
2

Build the release binary

cargo build --release
This compiles Nash with optimizations enabled. The build process typically takes 1-3 minutes depending on your system.
The --release flag is important for performance. Debug builds are significantly slower.
3

Locate the binary

After building, the binary will be at:
target/release/nash
You can run it directly from this location:
./target/release/nash
4

(Optional) Install system-wide

To make Nash available from anywhere, copy it to a directory in your PATH:
sudo cp target/release/nash /usr/local/bin/
Or add to your user bin directory:
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
cp target/release/nash ~/.local/bin/
# Add ~/.local/bin to your PATH if not already there
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

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Verify Installation

Test that Nash is working correctly:

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Check version

nash --version
You should see: 
nash 0.1.0

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Run interactive REPL

Start Nash in interactive mode: 
nash
You should see the welcome banner: 
Nash — Not A Shell  │  logged in as user  │  type help or Ctrl-D to exit

user@nash:/home/user$

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Test basic commands

Try some commands in the REPL: 
user@nash:/home/user$ pwd
/home/user

user@nash:/home/user$ ls
Desktop/  Documents/  Downloads/  welcome.txt

user@nash:/home/user$ cat welcome.txt
# Content of welcome.txt appears here

user@nash:/home/user$ echo "Nash is working!" | grep working
Nash is working!
Exit Nash with Ctrl-D or by typing exit.

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Dependencies

Nash has minimal runtime dependencies. All dependencies are automatically handled by Cargo during build:
DependencyVersionPurpose
rustyline14.0REPL and readline functionality
clap4.0CLI argument parsing
anyhow1.0Error handling
thiserror1.0Error type derivation
indexmap2.0Ordered environment variables
No system dependencies are required at runtime. Nash is a fully self-contained binary.

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Build Profile

The release build uses these optimizations (from Cargo.toml): 
[profile.release]
opt-level = 3      # Maximum optimization
lto = true         # Link-time optimization
These settings produce a highly optimized binary suitable for production use.

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Troubleshooting

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Build fails with “cannot find crate”

Ensure you have a stable internet connection. Cargo needs to download dependencies: 
cargo clean
cargo build --release

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“error: linker cc not found”

You need a C compiler for linking. Install build tools: 
sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential

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Binary is too large

You can strip debug symbols to reduce size: 
strip target/release/nash

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Permission denied when installing

If sudo cp to /usr/local/bin/ fails, use the user bin directory instead: 
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
cp target/release/nash ~/.local/bin/
Then add to your shell’s RC file (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, etc.): 
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

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Uninstalling

To remove Nash: 
# If installed to /usr/local/bin
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/nash

# If installed to ~/.local/bin
rm ~/.local/bin/nash

# Remove the source directory if desired
cd ..
rm -rf nash

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Next Steps

Now that Nash is installed, continue to the quickstart guide to learn how to use it:

Quickstart Tutorial

Get started with hands-on examples and learn Nash basics

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