Installation

Build the Verne binary from source — it takes a few seconds.

Verne is distributed as a single binary written in V. It links against libgc (provided by V) and depends on one external runtime tool: the chroma command-line binary, used for code-fence syntax highlighting.

Build from source

The current path while pre-built releases are not yet shipped:

bash
git clone https://github.com/davlgd/Verne
cd Verne
mise run prod        # or: v -prod -o verne src/
./verne version      # → verne 0.1.0

The repository ships a mise task file. If you do not use mise, the underlying command is v -prod -o verne src/. Either way, you end up with a ./verne binary — fully self-contained, statically linked against libgc, ~2 MB.

Move it somewhere on $PATH (/usr/local/bin/, ~/.local/bin/, or similar) when you are happy with it.

Runtime dependency: chroma

Code-fence syntax highlighting is delegated to the external chroma binary. verne build and verne server check at launch that chroma is runnable; if it is not, they exit with a pointer to its install docs. Compiling Verne itself does not need chroma.

Installing chroma

On macOS:

bash
brew install chroma

On Linux:

bash
go install github.com/alecthomas/chroma/v2/cmd/chroma@latest
# or download a pre-built binary from https://github.com/alecthomas/chroma/releases

$VERNE_CHROMA_PATH

By default, Verne looks for chroma on $PATH. The $VERNE_CHROMA_PATH environment variable overrides that lookup with a directory; the special value . means “next to the verne binary”:

bash
VERNE_CHROMA_PATH=/opt/tools/bin verne build
VERNE_CHROMA_PATH=. verne build       # chroma alongside ./verne

Useful for sandboxed environments and CI runners where you ship both binaries together.

Verifying the install

bash
verne version
# verne 0.1.0

If you see the version line, you are done. Move on to Quick start.

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