Installation
Release binaries
Releases with checksums support Linux and macOS on x86-64 and ARM64. For Linux
x86-64, with curl, tar and sha256sum installed:
mkdir -p bobbin-download && cd bobbin-download
base=https://github.com/scbrown/bobbin/releases/download/v0.18.1
asset=bobbin-v0.18.1-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
curl -fLO "$base/$asset" && curl -fLO "$base/SHA256SUMS.txt"
sha256sum --check --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS.txt && tar xzf "$asset"
export PATH="$PWD/bobbin-v0.18.1-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu:$PATH"
bobbin --version
Keep the extracted directory intact: its lib/ contains ONNX Runtime.
The pinned release reports:
bobbin 0.18.1 (bc246f84003f89eec07618e8c341bb6835500f58)
For other platforms and runtime prerequisites,
use the matching release asset. With the Rust build prerequisites installed,
cargo install bobbin-ai --locked builds from source and installs bobbin.
Run bobbin --version; if it reports an older version, check command -v bobbin
for another installation earlier in PATH.
Choose your platform
Download the archive and SHA256SUMS.txt from the
v0.18.1 release.
| System | Archive suffix |
|---|---|
| Linux x86-64 | x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz |
| Linux ARM64 | aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz |
| macOS Intel | x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz |
| macOS Apple Silicon | aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz |
Every filename starts with bobbin-v0.18.1-. On macOS, use shasum -a 256
and compare the archive’s digest with its entry in SHA256SUMS.txt before
extracting. Add the extracted directory to your shell’s PATH.
Linux releases target GNU C library, not musl/Alpine. The archive includes ONNX
Runtime in lib/; keep it beside the executable. If loading fails, confirm
that you extracted the entire archive and selected your CPU architecture.
Build from source
Install stable Rust, a C++ compiler, cmake and protoc (Protocol Buffers).
The crate is named bobbin-ai; the executable it installs is bobbin.
cargo install bobbin-ai --locked
bobbin --version
For repository development, install just and follow
Contributing. just build includes the
knowledge feature for Quipu integration; a default Cargo install does not.
First-run behavior
Local indexing downloads its embedding model on first use. Allow network
access for this step; subsequent searches use the cached model and local index.
Indexing time depends on repository size, model, hardware and enabled analysis.
Git history supplies temporal coupling; a new repository has no history yet.
A GPU is optional. Set BOBBIN_GPU=0 to explicitly use the CPU.
Next steps
- Quick start — build a tiny index and verify the result.
- Agent setup — connect your coding assistant.