Installation

Keep Silk Code isolated in ~/SilkCode/.venv while making the silkcode command available from every zsh terminal.

Requirements

• Python 3.10 or newer
• git
• zsh for the shell setup below

Install or update Silk Code

This block is safe to paste directly into zsh. It finds an installed Python 3.10+ automatically and recreates an older Silk Code virtual environment when necessary.

PYTHON_BIN=""
for candidate in python3.14 python3.13 python3.12 python3.11 python3.10 python3; do
    if command -v "$candidate" >/dev/null 2>&1 && "$candidate" -c 'import sys; raise SystemExit(0 if sys.version_info >= (3,10) else 1)' 2>/dev/null; then
        PYTHON_BIN="$(command -v "$candidate")"
        break
    fi
done

if [ -z "$PYTHON_BIN" ]; then
    echo "Silk Code requires Python 3.10 or newer."
    echo "On macOS with Homebrew, install one with: brew install python@3.12"
    exit 1
fi

echo "Using $($PYTHON_BIN --version) at $PYTHON_BIN"

if [ -d "$HOME/SilkCode/.git" ]; then
    git -C "$HOME/SilkCode" pull --ff-only
else
    git clone https://github.com/RupertCloud/SilkCode.git "$HOME/SilkCode"
fi

cd "$HOME/SilkCode"

if [ -x .venv/bin/python ] && ! .venv/bin/python -c 'import sys; raise SystemExit(0 if sys.version_info >= (3,10) else 1)' 2>/dev/null; then
    echo "Recreating .venv because it uses Python $( .venv/bin/python --version 2>&1 )"
    rm -rf .venv
fi

[ -d .venv ] || "$PYTHON_BIN" -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/python -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
.venv/bin/python -m pip install -e .
"$HOME/SilkCode/.venv/bin/silkcode" --help

grep -Fq 'export PATH="$HOME/SilkCode/.venv/bin:$PATH"' ~/.zshrc 2>/dev/null || \
    echo 'export PATH="$HOME/SilkCode/.venv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc
silkcode --help

If your Mac only has Python 3.9

Older macOS setups may still resolve python3 to Python 3.9. Silk Code requires Python 3.10 or newer.

If you use Homebrew:

brew install python@3.12
python3.12 --version

Then rerun the installer above. It will detect python3.12 and recreate any incompatible .venv.

Why the virtual environment must be recreated

A Python virtual environment is tied to the interpreter that created it. If .venv was created with Python 3.9, upgrading pip does not turn that environment into Python 3.10+. The installer therefore removes only Silk Code's incompatible .venv and recreates it with a supported interpreter.

Why the packaging upgrade matters

Some macOS Python installations create virtual environments with old packaging tools. Before installing Silk Code, the installer upgrades pip, setuptools, and wheel:

.venv/bin/python -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel

Verify

command -v silkcode
silkcode --help
silkcode models

Troubleshooting

Package 'silkcode' requires a different Python

Your existing virtual environment was created by Python 3.9 or older. If Python 3.12 is installed, repair it with:

cd "$HOME/SilkCode"
rm -rf .venv
python3.12 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/python -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
.venv/bin/python -m pip install -e .
source ~/.zshrc
silkcode --help

ERROR: setup.py or setup.cfg not found

Upgrade the packaging tools and retry:

cd "$HOME/SilkCode"
.venv/bin/python -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
.venv/bin/python -m pip install -e .

zsh: command not found: #

The official install block contains no shell comments. If you want interactive comments enabled generally, run:

echo 'setopt interactivecomments' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

zsh: command not found: silkcode

"$HOME/SilkCode/.venv/bin/silkcode" --help
source ~/.zshrc
command -v silkcode