Installation

Bender is a single standalone binary. You can either use our recommended shell installer, download a precompiled version, or build it from source.

Recommended: Shell Installer

The fastest way to install Bender is using our shell script. It detects your operating system and architecture, downloads the matching release, installs the bender binary into ${CARGO_HOME:-$HOME/.cargo}/bin, and adds that directory to your PATH:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 https://pulp-platform.github.io/bender/init -sSf | sh

After the script finishes, open a new shell (or source the env file it prints) and bender --version should work from anywhere.

Installing a Specific Version

Pass the desired version (e.g. 0.31.0) as a positional argument:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 https://pulp-platform.github.io/bender/init -sSf | sh -s -- 0.31.0

Note: Releases prior to v0.32.0 use a different (legacy) installer that drops the bender binary into the current directory by default. The --local / --global flags below let you pin a specific install location regardless of which installer is in play.

Forcing the Install Location

The defaults differ between installers (v0.32.0+ installs globally; pre-v0.32.0 installs into the current directory). Pass one of the following flags to pin the location explicitly:

• --local: drop the bender binary into the current directory. Useful for CI jobs that prefer a project-local install or for trying Bender without modifying your shell environment. After a --local install, invoke Bender as ./bender or move the binary onto your PATH.
• --global: install into ${CARGO_HOME:-$HOME/.cargo}/bin. For v0.32.0+ this also adds the directory to your PATH (default behavior); for older versions the binary is relocated there but you may need to add the directory to PATH manually.

# Latest release, local install
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 https://pulp-platform.github.io/bender/init -sSf | sh -s -- --local

# Specific (legacy) version, global install
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 https://pulp-platform.github.io/bender/init -sSf | sh -s -- --global 0.31.0

The position of the flag and version is interchangeable. --local and --global are mutually exclusive.

Note: The installer always overwrites an existing bender at the target location without prompting.

Alternative: Build from Source

If you prefer building your own binary, you will need to install Rust.

Using Cargo

You can install the latest official release directly from crates.io:

cargo install bender

Note: By default, Bender includes the pickle command which is backed by Slang. This requires a C++20 compliant compiler and increases build time significantly. To build without this feature, run:

cargo install bender --no-default-features

From Local Source

If you have cloned the repository, you can install the local version by running the following command from the project root:

cargo install --path .

Package Managers

Bender is also available through several third-party package managers:

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew install bender

See the Homebrew formula for more details.

Nix

Bender is packaged in nixpkgs:

nix-env -iA nixpkgs.bender
# or, on a flake-enabled system:
nix profile install nixpkgs#bender

The repository also ships its own flake.nix, so you can run Bender directly from the latest source without installing:

nix run github:pulp-platform/bender

Arch Linux (AUR)

yay -S bender   # or any other AUR helper

See Bender on the AUR for the package page.

Note: Third-party packages may lag behind the latest GitHub release. For the most recent version, prefer the shell installer or cargo install.

Verifying Installation

After installation, verify that Bender is available in your terminal:

bender --version

Shell Completion

Bender supports shell completion for Bash, Zsh, Fish, and PowerShell. To enable it, use the completion command and source the output in your shell’s configuration file.

For example, for Zsh:

bender completion zsh > ~/.bender_completion.zsh
echo "source ~/.bender_completion.zsh" >> ~/.zshrc