Installing Wave

Install the Wave compiler and Vex package manager with the official script, verify the toolchain, or use release archives.

Wave Foundation

Official install scripts

On Linux and macOS, the official shell installer installs the latest releases of both the wavec compiler and the vex package manager:

curl -fsSL https://wave-lang.dev/install.sh | bash -s -- latest

On Windows x86-64, run the PowerShell installer. It installs the Windows GNU build of wavec and the Windows MSVC build of vex into the same toolchain directory:

irm https://wave-lang.dev/install.ps1 -OutFile install.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\install.ps1 -Latest

If an installer cannot update the running shell environment, apply the PATH instructions it prints or start a new shell. The Windows installer uses %LOCALAPPDATA%\Wave\bin by default and adds it to the user PATH. Both installers verify the published SHA-256 checksum before replacing an existing installation.

Wave and Vex have independent release versions. To pin both instead of resolving the latest Vex release, use:

curl -fsSL https://wave-lang.dev/install.sh | bash -s -- --version <wave-release> --vex-version <vex-release>

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\install.ps1 -Version <wave-release> -VexVersion <vex-release>

Verify the installation

wavec --version
wavec --help
vex --version
vex --help

Include this output when reporting an installation or documentation problem.

Release archives

Release asset names include the selected version. The release page lists the exact version string and available platforms.

Platform Archive pattern
Linux x86-64 GNU wave-<version>-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
Windows x86-64 GNU wave-<version>-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu.zip
macOS Apple Silicon wave-<version>-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz

A SHA256SUMS asset is also published for verifying manually downloaded archives.

Build from source

Building the compiler repository requires a Rust toolchain.

git clone https://github.com/wavefnd/Wave.git
cd Wave
cargo build

This builds the default branch. To reproduce a published release, check out its tag before running Cargo:

git checkout <release-tag>

For an optimized compiler binary:

cargo build --release

The resulting executable is normally target/debug/wavec or target/release/wavec.

Post-install checks

  • Confirm the expected version with wavec --version.
  • Confirm the package manager version with vex --version.
  • Inspect recognized targets with wavec print supported-targets.
  • Locate the standard library with wavec print std-path.
  • If the shell cannot find wavec, check the installation directory and PATH first.

Reviewing remote scripts

Download and review install.sh or install.ps1 before running it when required by your environment's security policy.