Install

macOS on Apple silicon

brew install xistolang/tap/xisto

xisto calls the system C compiler: clang from the Xcode Command Line Tools. If you do not have them yet:

xcode-select --install

Check the installation:

xisto --version

Linux and Intel Macs: build from source

Building needs a C compiler (clang or gcc), make, python3, xxd and cmake (for AWS-LC, the default TLS library, downloaded once and checked by SHA-256; make TLS=bearssl skips it and uses BearSSL, which is in the tree).

git clone https://github.com/xistolang/xisto && cd xisto
make                 # build/xisto

The compiler is build/xisto; put it (or a link to it) on your PATH. xisto runs on macOS and Linux, on ARM64 and x86-64. At build time, xisto needs a C compiler on the machine (clang or gcc); the executables it makes need nothing installed.

Cross-compiling

xisto build --target=linux-arm64|linux-x64|windows-x64 makes an executable for another system from any host. It needs zig installed. See the CLI reference.

Editor support

The repository has a VS Code extension in editors/. Editors and AI agents can also read diagnostics as JSON with --json.

Next: your first program.