¶Installation

¶Download a release (recommended)

Pre-built downloads are published for each release on the Releases page.

¶DMG (easiest)

Download e-<version>-universal.dmg, open it, and drag e.app into Applications. It runs on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

The app is ad-hoc signed, so on first launch macOS may say it's from an "unidentified developer" — right-click the app → Open to allow it.

¶Binary archive

For a CLI install, download the archive for your platform:

• Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3): e-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz
• Intel Mac: e-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz

shasum -a 256 -c e-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz.sha256   # optional
tar xzf e-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz
mv e /usr/local/bin/e

Once installed, e keeps itself up to date — see Updating.

¶Build from source

¶Requirements

• Rust 1.87 or newer
• A C toolchain (for tree-sitter grammars)
• Optional: language servers on your PATH (see Languages & LSP)

¶Build

git clone https://github.com/kwhorne/e
cd e
cargo build --release

The binary is produced at target/release/e.

¶Run

# Open a directory as a workspace
cargo run --release -- path/to/project

# Or open a single file
cargo run --release -- path/to/file.rs

¶macOS app bundle

To build and launch a proper .app bundle (so the window comes to the front):

./scripts/run.sh path/to/project

To produce a distributable .app bundle:

./scripts/bundle-macos.sh

¶Build a DMG installer

./scripts/bundle-dmg.sh             # host architecture
./scripts/bundle-dmg.sh --universal # universal (arm64 + x86_64)

This produces dist/e-<version>.dmg containing e.app and an Applications symlink — open it and drag the app into Applications.

By default the app is ad-hoc signed, so on first launch macOS shows an "unidentified developer" prompt; right-click the app → Open to allow it.

For distribution without that prompt you need an Apple Developer account:

1. Sign with a Developer ID certificate:

   CODESIGN_IDENTITY="Developer ID Application: Your Name (TEAMID)" ./scripts/bundle-dmg.sh --universal
   

2. Notarize the DMG with Apple and staple the ticket:

   xcrun notarytool submit dist/e-<version>-universal.dmg \
     --apple-id you@example.com --team-id TEAMID --password <app-specific-password> --wait
   xcrun stapler staple dist/e-<version>-universal.dmg
   

¶Language servers

e uses the Language Server Protocol for rich language features. Install the servers for the languages you use and make sure they are on your PATH:

See Languages & LSP for details.