Install Nifty

Nifty comes as one command-line tool called nf. You use it to create, check and run apps. This page gets it onto your computer. You don’t need Rust or anything else first.

macOS

Install it with Homebrew:

brew install istorry/tap/nifty-cli

Windows

Install it with winget, which comes with Windows 10 and 11:

winget install nifty-cli

Open a new terminal window afterwards so it picks up nf.

Check it works

nf help

You should see:

usage: nf <command> [args]

commands:
  create <name>      create a new app in a folder called <name>
  run [project]      run an app (default: the current folder)
  dev [project]      run an app and reload it each time you save, keeping its state
  check [project]    report errors in a project (default: the current folder)
  build [project] [--macos | --windows | --linux]
                     build a native app (default: for this system)
  lsp                run the language server on stdin and stdout, for editors
  version            print the version of nf

A project is a folder with a main.nf file, or a single .nf file.

That’s it. Next, make your first app.

To build apps to share with nf build, you’ll also need your system’s linker; see Share your app.

Updating

Building from source

If you’d rather build nf yourself, or want to work on Nifty, see Building from source.

If something goes wrong