Installation

spec-spine is distributed as a single multi-call binary. It is available via four distribution channels: crates.io (for Rust users), a prebuilt binary installer script, an npm package, and a PyPI package. All channels ship version 0.8.0.

crates.io (Rust)

If you have a Rust toolchain installed, cargo install is the recommended path. It builds the binary from source and places it on your path.

cargo install spec-spine-cli --version 0.8.0 --locked

Prebuilt binary (Shell script)

If you do not have a Rust toolchain, you can install the prebuilt binary using the shell installer. The script detects your platform and architecture, downloads the matching release archive, verifies its checksum, and installs the binary.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/statecrafting/spec-spine/main/install.sh | sh

You can pin a specific version and target directory using environment variables:

SPEC_SPINE_VERSION=v0.8.0 SPEC_SPINE_BIN_DIR=~/.local/bin curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/statecrafting/spec-spine/main/install.sh | sh

npm (TypeScript/JavaScript)

For TypeScript or JavaScript repositories, you can install spec-spine as a development dependency. The npm package ships a prebuilt binary through a small launcher; it does not require a Rust toolchain.

npm i -D spec-spine

You can then run the binary via npx:

npx spec-spine --version

PyPI (Python)

For Python repositories, spec-spine is available as a PyPI package. It ships as platform wheels containing the prebuilt binary, placing it directly on your path.

uvx spec-spine
# or
pip install spec-spine

Verifying the installation

Regardless of the channel you chose, you should now have the spec-spine binary available.

spec-spine --version

If the command prints the version, you are ready to proceed to the Quickstart.