Installation

Clinker is a single static binary with no runtime dependencies. Download it, put it on your PATH, and you are ready to go.

Binaries

Clinker ships two binaries:

• clinker – the pipeline executor. This is the main tool you use to validate and run pipelines against data.
• cxl – the CXL expression checker, evaluator, and formatter. Use it during development to test expressions interactively, check types, and format CXL blocks.

Verify installation

After placing the binaries on your PATH, confirm they work:

clinker --version

clinker 0.1.0

cxl --version

cxl 0.1.0

Both commands should print a version string and exit. If you see command not found, check that the directory containing the binaries is in your PATH.

Building from source

Clinker requires Rust 1.91+ (edition 2024). If you have a Rust toolchain installed, build and install both binaries directly from the repository:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/rustpunk/clinker.git
cd clinker

# Install the pipeline executor
cargo install --path crates/clinker

# Install the CXL expression tool
cargo install --path crates/cxl-cli

This compiles release-optimized binaries and places them in ~/.cargo/bin/, which is typically already on your PATH.

To verify the build:

cargo test --workspace

This runs the full test suite (approximately 1100 tests) and confirms everything is working correctly on your system.

Rust toolchain

The repository includes a rust-toolchain.toml that pins the exact Rust version. If you use rustup, it will automatically download the correct toolchain when you build.