Installation

This guide will help you set up the Animal language interpreter on your system.

Requirements

Go 1.21 or higher
Git

Install via `go install`

The quickest way to get the CLI is with Go’s install command, which fetches the latest tagged version:

go install github.com/animal-lang/animal/cmd/animal@latest

The binary is placed in $GOBIN (or $GOPATH/bin). Make sure that directory is on your PATH so animal is available everywhere.

Installing from Source

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/animal-lang/animal.git
cd animal

Build the interpreter
```
go build -o animal ./cmd/animal
```
Verify the installation
```
./animal --version
```
The command prints the version that was just built.

Useful CLI Flags

Animal ships with a couple of helper flags to enhance development:

animal --repl              # launch the interactive shell
animal --time script.anml  # report execution time
animal --debug script.anml # emit debug trace output

Pass --help to see every supported flag.

Platform Notes

Linux / macOS

Ensure the binary is executable: chmod +x animal when building from source.
Add $GOBIN to the PATH so animal is available in new shells.

Windows

go install will place animal.exe in %GOBIN%.
After building from source you can move animal.exe anywhere on the PATH.