Installation

Choose between a tagged GitHub release and the current main branch:

• Tagged release — a published, reproducible version with pre-built binaries.
• Current main — the newest code in the repository. It may contain features that have not reached a release tag yet.

Do not infer the latest release from examples or from the version in a checkout. Check GitHub Releases, and verify the installed binary with mdvdb --version.

Install the latest tagged release

On macOS or Linux, the repository install script detects your operating system and architecture, downloads the latest tagged release, and installs mdvdb:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/geckse/markdown-vdb/main/install.sh | sh

The default destination is /usr/local/bin. To install without administrator access, choose a directory you own and add it to PATH:

mkdir -p "$HOME/.local/bin"
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/geckse/markdown-vdb/main/install.sh \
  | INSTALL_DIR="$HOME/.local/bin" sh
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

If you prefer to inspect scripts before running them, download install.sh, review it, and then run it locally.

Manual release download

Release archives and raw binaries are published at github.com/geckse/markdown-vdb/releases. Assets use the release tag and Rust target in their names, for example:

Unix archives follow mdvdb-<TAG>-<TARGET>.tar.gz; Windows archives use .zip. Extract the archive and put mdvdb or mdvdb.exe in a directory on PATH.

Install current main

Install the latest development snapshot with the current stable Rust toolchain:

cargo install \
  --git https://github.com/geckse/markdown-vdb.git \
  --branch main \
  --locked

This follows main; it is not the same promise as installing the newest release tag. To build an exact tag from source, replace --branch main with --tag <TAG>:

cargo install \
  --git https://github.com/geckse/markdown-vdb.git \
  --tag <TAG> \
  --locked

For development, clone the repository instead:

git clone https://github.com/geckse/markdown-vdb.git
cd markdown-vdb
cargo build --release --locked

The binary is written to target/release/mdvdb (mdvdb.exe on Windows).

Source-build requirements

Use a current stable Rust toolchain. Native dependencies also require a C/C++ toolchain and CMake. Typical setup commands are:

# macOS
xcode-select --install

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install build-essential cmake pkg-config

# Fedora / RHEL
sudo dnf install gcc gcc-c++ cmake pkg-config

On Windows, install Visual Studio Build Tools with the C++ workload and CMake.

Verify and update

mdvdb --version
mdvdb --help

To update, repeat the method you originally used: rerun the release installer for the newest tag, or rerun cargo install --git ... --branch main --locked for a newer development snapshot.

Next steps

• Quick Start — initialize, configure, ingest, and query a collection
• Configuration — YAML settings, secrets, and embedding providers
• Shell Completions — enable completions for your shell
• Command Reference — browse CLI commands