---
title: Install
weight: 10
---

go-libfossil is a Go module and a command. Neither needs cgo, a C toolchain or an installed `fossil`.

## The command

```sh
go install github.com/danmestas/go-libfossil/cmd/libfossil@latest
libfossil --help
```

This needs the Go toolchain named in `go.mod` (Go 1.26 or later). The binary is statically linked and runs on Linux, macOS and Windows. Every command is listed in the [CLI reference](/docs/reference/cli/).

## The library

```sh
go get github.com/danmestas/go-libfossil@latest
```

The library talks to SQLite through `database/sql` and does not pick a driver for you. Blank-import exactly one of the two driver modules in your `main` package; importing both panics at start-up.

| Driver | Import | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| modernc | `_ "github.com/danmestas/go-libfossil/db/driver/modernc"` | servers, command-line tools, desktop: SQLite translated to Go |
| ncruces | `_ "github.com/danmestas/go-libfossil/db/driver/ncruces"` | `GOOS=js` and `GOOS=wasip1` builds: SQLite itself as WebAssembly |

Each driver is its own module, so `go get` it too:

```sh
go get github.com/danmestas/go-libfossil/db/driver/modernc@latest
```

## WebAssembly

With the ncruces driver the module builds for `GOOS=js GOARCH=wasm` (a browser) and `GOOS=wasip1 GOARCH=wasm` (any WASI Preview 1 host). CI builds the module's packages for `js/wasm` on every change. The [wasm example](https://github.com/danmestas/go-libfossil/tree/main/examples/wasm) builds and runs a WASI module.

### TinyGo

The whole public API, the HTTP sync client and signing included, also builds with [TinyGo](https://tinygo.org) for the `wasm` target, which is what makes it small enough to ship with a page or an edge function:

```
tinygo build -target=wasm -no-debug -opt=z -stack-size=1MB -o libfossil.wasm ./examples/tinygo/
wasm-opt -Oz --detect-features --strip-debug --strip-producers libfossil.wasm -o libfossil.wasm
```

- **Size:** for [`examples/tinygo`](https://github.com/danmestas/go-libfossil/tree/main/examples/tinygo), about 1.3 MB gzipped as CI builds it, against about 4.1 MB from the standard toolchain. A program without sync is smaller.
- **Driver:** a TinyGo build imports no SQLite driver. The host registers a `database/sql` driver over its own SQLite; ncruces is for standard Go builds and modernc has no wasm build.
- **Stack:** `-stack-size=1MB`, because TinyGo's default goroutine stack is too small for the deeper paths.
- **Differences:** under TinyGo a sync redirect ends the request with an error instead of being followed, and DNS failures are not classified as transient.
- **Without HTTP:** a program that serves sync through `HandleSyncWithOpts` and syncs, if at all, through a `Transport` its host supplies can build with `-tags libfossil_nohttp`. That leaves out `NewHTTPTransport`, `WithHTTPClient`, `Repo.Pull`, `Repo.XferHandler` and `Repo.ServeHTTP`, and with them `net/http`, whose TLS and X.509 dependencies are about 97 KB of a gzipped TinyGo binary. Everything else is unchanged. The tag is for library embedders: the `cli` package and `examples/tinygo`, which calls `NewHTTPTransport`, do not build with it. A tagged embedder supplies its own transport and serving, for example a `Transport` for `Sync` and its own request handling around `HandleSyncWithOpts`.

CI builds `examples/tinygo` with TinyGo 0.43 on every change.

## Next

- [Quickstart: the CLI](/docs/get-started/quickstart/)
- [Embed in Go](/docs/get-started/embed-in-go/)