Install

Mellow runs on macOS (Apple silicon and Intel) and Linux (x86_64 and ARM64). Windows is not supported; inside WSL, use the Linux instructions.

Before you install

• Use an interactive terminal on macOS or Linux, on Apple silicon/ARM64 or x86_64. You do not need a graphical desktop, custom font or TrueColor support.
• Prebuilt binaries do not require Rust. The installer needs sh, tar, curl (or wget when running a downloaded script), and shasum or sha256sum.
• Building with Cargo requires Rust 1.90+ and a working C compiler/linker.
• Git features require system git. Language servers and formatters are separate optional installs; basic editing needs neither. AI needs explicit setup and is not required.

Choose one installation method below. Check your platform with uname -sm if you are selecting a release archive manually.

Install script (macOS and Linux)

curl -fsSL https://github.com/ritru-labs/mellow/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

The script picks the right build for your system, checks its SHA-256 checksum and installs mellow to ~/.local/bin. If that folder is not on your PATH yet, it prints the line to add. The script replaces an existing binary at that location; it does not configure your shell PATH.

Options, set before sh:

Variable	Effect
MELLOW_VERSION=0.3.3	Install that version instead of the latest
MELLOW_INSTALL_DIR=/some/dir	Install somewhere other than ~/.local/bin

For example, choose a different install directory:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/ritru-labs/mellow/releases/latest/download/install.sh | MELLOW_INSTALL_DIR="$HOME/bin" sh

Homebrew (macOS and Linux)

brew install ritru-labs/tap/mellow

On macOS, use Homebrew or the install script rather than downloading the archive in a browser: the builds are not yet signed by Apple, so macOS may block browser-downloaded copies.

Debian and Ubuntu

curl -fsSLO https://github.com/ritru-labs/mellow/releases/download/v0.3.3/mellow_0.3.3_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./mellow_0.3.3_amd64.deb

On ARM64, use mellow_0.3.3_arm64.deb.

Fedora, RHEL, Rocky, Alma

sudo dnf install https://github.com/ritru-labs/mellow/releases/download/v0.3.3/mellow-0.3.3-1.x86_64.rpm

On ARM64, use mellow-0.3.3-1.aarch64.rpm. On Amazon Linux 2, use yum instead of dnf. On openSUSE:

sudo rpm -i https://github.com/ritru-labs/mellow/releases/download/v0.3.3/mellow-0.3.3-1.x86_64.rpm

The release workflow targets static musl Linux binaries to reduce dependencies on a distribution-specific C library.

Repository-reported validation coverage (install, edit, save and quit in a real terminal): Amazon Linux 2 and 2023, Rocky Linux 9, AlmaLinux 8, CentOS Stream 9, Fedora, openSUSE Leap 15.6, Debian 11 and 12, Ubuntu 20.04, 22.04 and 24.04, Alpine 3.20 and Arch Linux, on x86_64 and ARM64; and macOS on Apple silicon.

Any Linux or macOS, by hand

Download the .tar.gz for your system from the latest release, check it against SHA256SUMS, unpack it and put mellow on your PATH:

System	Archive
macOS, Apple silicon	mellow-<version>-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz
macOS, Intel	mellow-<version>-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz
Linux x86_64	mellow-<version>-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz
Linux ARM64	mellow-<version>-aarch64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz

With Cargo

If you have Rust 1.90 or newer:

cargo install mellow --locked

From source

With Rust 1.90 or newer:

git clone https://github.com/ritru-labs/mellow.git
cd mellow
cargo install --locked --path .

Check it worked

mellow --version

The version should print as mellow 0.3.3 for the documented release (a newer installed release will print its own version). Run mellow --help for CLI usage, then follow Make your first edit. If the shell cannot find it, see PATH troubleshooting.

Update and uninstall

Installed with	Update	Uninstall
Install script	run it again	rm ~/.local/bin/mellow
Homebrew	brew upgrade mellow	brew uninstall mellow
.deb	install the newer .deb	sudo apt remove mellow
.rpm	install the newer .rpm	sudo dnf remove mellow
Cargo	cargo install mellow --locked	cargo uninstall mellow

Your settings and recovery data live in ~/.config/mellow and ~/.local/state/mellow; delete those folders to remove them too.