Installing from source

Install from source on Linux
Install from source on Mac

Installation from source on Linux

This describes the steps need to install IVy on Ubuntu 22.04. This may also work on other Debian-based distributions.

Prerequisites

$ sudo apt-get install python3 python3-pip python3-venv g++ cmake python3-ply python3-pygraphviz git python3-tk pkg-config libssl-dev libreadline-dev

Install IVy

Get the source like this:

$ git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/kenmcmil/ivy.git
$ cd ivy

Optional: build the submodules. This is needed to use model checking or automated test generation. Use this command (which takes a while):

$ python3 build_submodules.py

Optional, recommended: use a python virtal environment:

$ python3 -m venv venv
$ . venv/bin/activate

If you want to use a particular version of Z3, you can install it like this:

$ pip3 install z3-solver==X.Y

where X.Y is the version.

Install into your local Python like this:

$ pip3 install .

If Z3 is not already installed in your Python, you’ll get the latest version in PyPI.

If you want to run from the source tree for development purposes, do this instead:

$ pip3 install -e .

Optionally, build the experimental Ivy v2.0 compiler:

$ python3 build_v2_compiler.py

Run

Run Ivy on an example, like this:

$ cd doc/examples
$ ivy client_server_example.ivy

Or, if you only want to use Ivy on the command line, test it like this:

$ ivy_check trace=true doc/examples/client_server_example_new.ivy

Ivy should print out a counterexample trace.

Emacs mode

An emacs major mode for Ivy is available in lib/emacs/ivy-mode.el. Put this file somewhere in your emacs load path and add the following code to your .emacs:

(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.ivy\\'" . ivy-mode))
(autoload 'ivy-mode  "ivy-mode.el" "Major mode for editing Ivy code" t nil)

Installation from source on MacOS

Install using Homebrew

These instructions have been tested on macOS 26 (Tahoe) on Apple silicon.

Install the Xcode command line tools (if not already installed). These provide the C/C++ compiler used to build Ivy’s submodules; a full Xcode installation from the App Store is not required.
```
 $ xcode-select --install
```
Optional: install XQuartz if you need the Ivy GUI.
Install Homebrew (if not already installed), following the instructions at https://brew.sh:
```
 $ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
```
On Apple silicon, make sure Homebrew is on your PATH afterwards. The installer prints the exact command; it is usually:
```
 $ eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"
```
Install the build prerequisites:
```
 $ brew install cmake coreutils git graphviz pkgconf openssl@3 readline python@3.10 python-tk@3.10
```
openssl@3 is required to build the picotls submodule, and pkgconf (which provides pkg-config) lets that build find it.
Use Python 3.10.

Ivy is built and installed using Python 3.10 (installed above as python3.10). This version is needed only to build and install Ivy: it does not change the Python you use for anything else, and you do not need Python at all to run Ivy afterwards, since Ivy is used through its command-line tools (such as ivy_check).

Homebrew’s Python is “externally managed”, so install Ivy into a virtual environment created with Python 3.10. This also keeps the installation self-contained:
```
 $ python3.10 -m venv ivy-venv
 $ . ivy-venv/bin/activate
 $ python --version        # should print Python 3.10.x
```
Install Ivy:

With the virtual environment activated, follow the Linux instructions above under “Install Ivy”, starting from the git clone step (you can skip the separate virtual-environment step there, since you created one above).

Binary releases

Ivy is released as a Python package in the PyPI repository.

Install binary release on Linux

$ sudo apt-get install python3 python3-pip g++ cmake python3-ply python3-pygraphviz git python3-tk tix pkg-config libssl-dev libreadline-dev
$ sudo pip3 install ms-ivy

Note, if you omit sudo in the second command, Ivy will be installed into ~\.local\bin, which is probably not what you want, so be careful.

This does not install the documentation and example files. You can get these from github like this (see the directory ivy/doc):

$ sudo apt-get install git
$ git clone https://github.com/kenmcmil/ivy.git

Install binary release on Mac

A macOS binary wheel (Apple silicon, Python 3.10) is published on PyPI. Install it into a Python 3.10 environment; a virtual environment is recommended:

$ brew install python@3.10 graphviz
$ python3.10 -m venv ivy-venv
$ . ivy-venv/bin/activate
$ pip3 install ms-ivy

graphviz provides the dot tool used for visualization. As on Linux, this does not install the documentation and example files; get those from GitHub:

$ git clone https://github.com/kenmcmil/ivy.git