Install

Audience: builders trying Ophiolite locally
Status: Preview

The first packaged SDK preview is available as ophiolite-sdk for macOS Apple Silicon. Source installs remain the contributor path.

Before installing, check the system requirements.

Current prerequisites

• Rust toolchain
• Python 3.10, 3.11, or 3.12
• Git

Install the SDK preview

On macOS Apple Silicon, use a virtual environment. Homebrew-managed Python usually blocks global pip install commands with an externally-managed-environment error, and that is expected.

python3.12 -m venv .venv-ophiolite
source .venv-ophiolite/bin/activate
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
python -m pip install ophiolite-sdk

The install exposes the ophiolite_sdk import surface, the user-facing ophiolite console script, and the compatibility ophiolite-automation console script.

Verify the install

Run the install doctor first. It checks the native CLI, platform, writable cache, local project runtime, operation catalog, bundled sample data, and license state.

ophiolite doctor

Each check includes a support category and stable code, such as OPH_DOCTOR_LICENSE_WARN, so CI logs and support tickets can refer to the same failure class.

The current preview build reports a license warning until a certificate is imported. Other failures should be treated as install issues.

You can also inspect the activation prototype directly:

ophiolite auth status

For preview testing with a signed local certificate JSON file:

ophiolite auth import .\license.json
ophiolite doctor

The preview CLI has the preview-2026-05 public key built in, so ordinary preview certificates do not require a public-key environment variable.

Source install

Build the CLI

git clone https://github.com/scrooijmans/ophiolite.git
cd ophiolite
cargo build -p ophiolite-cli

Install the Python package from source

The commercial package name is ophiolite-sdk. The current source install path uses the same Python project metadata:

python -m pip install -e .\python

Inspect the operation catalog

cargo run --quiet --manifest-path Cargo.toml -p ophiolite-cli -- operation-catalog

Verify Python

from ophiolite_sdk import Project

project = Project.create("demo-project")
print(project.summary())

Current caveat

The public install story is real, but still early. The first wheel is macOS Apple Silicon only, activation is a local certificate prototype, and the Workbench installer is not yet live. Some project-first ingest and richer workflow APIs remain narrower in public Python and CLI surfaces than they are in the Rust core.

For failed installs or activation issues, continue to Troubleshooting and Support and Diagnostics.

When you are finished testing from a virtual environment, run deactivate.

Next: 10-minute quickstart