Installation

Installation

This guide explains how to get AlphaForge running on your machine, either from source in development mode or as a production build.

Prerequisites

Tool	Version	Notes
Rust	stable	MSVC toolchain required on Windows (see below)
Node.js	22+	LTS recommended
pnpm	9+	Package manager for the monorepo

Windows — Rust MSVC toolchain

AlphaForge is built with Tauri 2, which requires the Microsoft C++ Build Tools on Windows:

1. Install Visual Studio Build Tools.

2. During installation select the "Desktop development with C++" workload.

3. Install Rust via rustup and confirm the default MSVC toolchain is active:

   rustup default stable-msvc
   rustc --version

macOS

Install the Xcode Command Line Tools:

xcode-select --install

Note: the MVP does not include macOS notarization, so a Gatekeeper warning when opening a downloaded build is a known, expected behavior (see Troubleshooting).

Linux

Install the Tauri system dependencies for your distribution (webkit2gtk, gtk3, and related packages).

Step 1 — Get the Source Code

git clone https://github.com/BerryUIKI/alpha-forge.git
cd alpha-forge

Step 2 — Install Dependencies

pnpm install

This installs dependencies for the desktop app, shared packages, and internal plugins in one pass.

Step 3 — Run in Development

Desktop app (full experience)

pnpm tauri dev

This starts the Vite frontend and the Rust backend together, then opens the native desktop window. The first Rust build takes several minutes.

Frontend only (browser, no native features)

pnpm dev:web

The web frontend is useful for UI work but native features (filesystem, credentials, SQLite) are only available in the desktop app.

Step 4 — Build Production Binaries

pnpm tauri build

Platform installers are produced in apps/desktop/src-tauri/target/release/ (e.g. .msi/.exe on Windows, .dmg/.app on macOS, .deb/.AppImage on Linux).

Development Quality Commands

pnpm typecheck        # TypeScript type checking
pnpm lint             # ESLint
pnpm test             # Frontend unit tests (Vitest)

cargo check --workspace
cargo fmt --check
cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings
cargo test --workspace

Where Your Data Lives

All data is stored locally in a SQLite database inside the app's user data directory (platform-specific, e.g. %APPDATA% on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support on macOS). See Configuration for backup and export options.

Next Steps

• Configuration — language and AI provider.
• Daily-Operations — the daily workflow.