01 — Installation and Hello, vibe

Previous: Introduction

日本語版: 01_getting_started.vibe.md

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mizchi/vibe-lang/main/install/install.sh | bash
. "$HOME/.vibe/env"
vibe version

From a checkout of this repository, bash install/install.sh does the same thing. You get the vibe command, a viberun host, and the standard library. The compiler itself is a wasm module.

Hello

Put this in hello.vibex:

fn main with Console {
  println("hello, vibe")
}

hello, vibe

vibe run hello.vibex

println is built in, so there is nothing to import.

The .vibex extension marks an executable root: a file with exactly one fn main, which other files cannot import — and which therefore exports nothing (ADR-0075). Reusable source modules end in .vibe. Two more files appear later: vibe.deps below is project metadata, and a package's index.vpkg — Modules and packages — is its public contract, declarations the compiler checks the implementation against.

The interesting part is with Console. It is the program's permission to write to the terminal, and it is required: delete it and the program does not compile. That is the language's one big idea, showing up in the smallest program it has — a function states what it is allowed to do, and the compiler holds it to that.

You will meet the same shape again for failure (with Exception) and for reading files (allows Fs::read_file). Capabilities is where it is finished.

Ask the compiler questions

vibe's CLI is built to be queried, not just run. The convention throughout is empty output means clean.

vibe check hello.vibex     # typecheck; prints nothing if it compiles
vibe run   hello.vibex     # compile and execute
vibe test  hello_test.vibe # run its test { } blocks

vibe check is the one to reach for while writing. It answers "does this compile" on its own, one diagnostic per line, and exits non-zero if there is anything to say.

There are more of these — vibe symbols, vibe type-at, vibe deps — and they exist so an editor, or you, or a script can ask the compiler what it knows. The CLI as an IDE covers them.

A project, when you want one

vibe new myapp
cd myapp
vibe run main.vibex

vibe new writes two files: main.vibex, the entry point, and vibe.deps, where vibe add records URL dependencies to vendor (one <name> <url> per line). That is the whole scaffold — a package contract (index.vpkg) is something you add when you have something to publish, and Modules and packages picks that up. You do not need any of it for a single file, which is why this chapter did not start there.

Next: A small program.