Install from source

The goal of this page is a working sysml binary on your machine. There are two routes: download a prebuilt binary (fastest), or build from source (needed on Windows, and for developing sysml-rs).

Download a prebuilt binary

The latest release publishes standalone binaries. They are self-contained: no separate toolchain, no specification fetch, no parser generation.

Platform	CLI asset
Linux x86-64	sysml-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
Linux ARM64	sysml-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu
macOS Apple Silicon	sysml-aarch64-apple-darwin
macOS Intel	sysml-x86_64-apple-darwin

curl -L -o sysml \
  https://github.com/RickyMillar/sysml-rs/releases/latest/download/sysml-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
chmod +x sysml
./sysml --version
# sysml 0.1.0

On macOS, Gatekeeper blocks unsigned downloaded binaries: the release is not notarised, so clear the quarantine attribute yourself (xattr -d com.apple.quarantine sysml) if you trust it, or build from source.

Two things worth knowing before you file a bug:

• The binary reports 0.1.0 even in the v0.1.1 release. The crate version has not been bumped alongside the tag. Use the release tag, not --version, to say which build you have.
• There is no Windows CLI binary. The release ships a Windows language server (inside the VS Code extension), but not sysml.exe. On Windows, build from source below, or use WSL with the Linux binary.

The language server and the VS Code extension packages are published in the same release — see editor setup.

Build from source

The build has two unusual steps before cargo build — fetching the OMG specification sources and generating the parser — and it genuinely does not work without them. Budget tens of minutes for the first build; every later build is an ordinary incremental Rust build.

Prerequisites

Tool	Version	Why
Rust toolchain	CI builds on 1.92.0; no MSRV declared yet	The workspace itself
Node.js	20	The tree-sitter CLI and the editor packages
tree-sitter-cli	exactly 0.26.5	Parser generation (see the ABI note below)
C compiler	any working cc	Compiles the generated parser
git, curl, awk, sha256sum	any	Used by the reference fetch script
Disk	several GB free for target/	Rust build artifacts

Git LFS is not required — public clones carry no LFS objects.

1. Clone

git clone https://github.com/RickyMillar/sysml-rs
cd sysml-rs

2. Fetch the specification sources

The OMG SysML v2 and KerML materials (specification documents, Xtext grammars, TTL metamodel) are fetched, not vendored — they are published upstream under their own terms. A pinned script reconstructs references/sysmlv2/ at the exact revisions this tree is built against, verifying each item against a recorded checksum:

tools/fetch-references/fetch.sh

Expect about 210 MB and a few minutes on a first run. Re-runs are idempotent: anything that already verifies is skipped. Two other modes are useful later: fetch.sh verify re-checks an existing tree offline, and fetch.sh list prints the pinned inventory.

This step is not optional and not just for spec lookups: sysml-core’s build script generates element kinds, property accessors, and the validation dispatcher from the fetched TTL and Xtext files, so cargo build fails in build.rs without them.

3. Generate the parser

The tree-sitter parser is generated, not committed — src/parser.c is a single ~80 MB table-driven C file:

npm install -g tree-sitter-cli@0.26.5
cd crates/lang/sysml-parser-incremental/tree-sitter
./generate_from_xtext.sh          # keyword/operator/enum tables, from the Xtext grammars
tree-sitter generate --abi 14     # ABI 14 exactly — see below
cd -

generate_from_xtext.sh reads the grammars fetched in step 2, so the order matters. --abi 14 is not a style preference: the Rust tree-sitter crate this workspace builds against reads ABI 14, and a parser generated at ABI 15 compiles cleanly and then segfaults at parse time, looking like a memory bug rather than a version mismatch.

This is why the first build is slow. Generation takes tens of minutes for a grammar this size (the project’s own CI notes ~50 minutes for a cold regeneration, and shares the generated parser between CI jobs as a checksummed artifact — but no pre-generated parser is published for local builds today). It is a one-time cost until you change the grammar.

4. Build

cargo build --release

Release, not debug — the physics solver is unusably slow unoptimised. This builds the workspace’s default members, which is everything except the Tauri desktop shell. The binary lands at target/release/sysml.

5. Smoke test

Check a real model from the repository’s example corpus:

./target/release/sysml check examples/espresso-pump-hybrid/Physics/HydraulicConstraints.sysml

[PASS] NonNegativeThresholds: pWarning >= 0.0 and exposureTrip > 0.0
[PASS] PositiveConductance: restrictionConductance > 0.0
[PASS] RegularizedRoot: epsRoot > 0.0

3/3 constraints passed, 0 failed

If you see that, you have a working install — continue with Your first model. sysml --help is the authoritative list of what else the CLI offers.

Troubleshooting

• A build error naming references/sysmlv2 means step 2 was skipped or is incomplete. Run tools/fetch-references/fetch.sh again; it only fetches what fails verification.
• A segfault while parsing almost always means the parser was generated at ABI 15. Regenerate with tree-sitter generate --abi 14 using tree-sitter-cli 0.26.5 exactly.
• The tool looks hung on physics or simulation commands — check you built and are running target/release/sysml, not a debug binary.
• The first build taking a very long time is normal — parser generation dominates it and does not repeat.

If you are setting up to modify sysml-rs itself (tests, grammar work, the editor packages and their install-order gotcha), follow CONTRIBUTING.md instead — it is the maintained developer setup.

What was verified

The smoke-test command and its output were executed against a release build of the commit this page is stamped with. The cold-clone steps (fetch, parser generation, first build) follow the maintained README and CONTRIBUTING text and the CI workflow definitions rather than a fresh end-to-end run for this page.