Install

Cliewen ships as one binary called clue. Installing it does not change any repository. It is a command-line judge you point at a project when you choose. Nothing is written into a repository until you run clue init.

There are three installation routes. Each installs the same checksum-verified binary from the same release.

Prerequisites

• Required: Git (git).
• Required for the install script: curl or wget and sha256sum or shasum on macOS and Linux; PowerShell on Windows. All are normally present.
• Required: permission to add one directory to your user PATH. No administrator rights are needed.
• Optional: the Go toolchain, if you prefer installing from source.
• Recommended later for GitHub: an authenticated GitHub CLI (gh) for the pull-request loop. Cliewen itself works with plain Git and any forge.

Node.js and npm are needed only to build this guide or contribute to Cliewen itself.

Install clue

One command, on any supported machine:

macOS and Linux

curl -fsSL https://cliewen.dev/install.sh | sh

Windows

irm https://cliewen.dev/install.ps1 | iex

Any host with Go

go install github.com/cliewen/cliewen/cmd/clue@latest

Working inside Claude Code? Install from the plugin instead and skip the context switch; it runs the same script and installs the same binary.

Then open a new terminal and run clue version; a PATH change does not reach an already-running shell. It should print the installed release version. On macOS and Linux, the script does not edit your shell profile. If ~/.local/bin is not already on PATH, it prints the exact export PATH=… line to add.

The script detects your operating system and architecture, downloads the matching release binary, and verifies it against the release's SHA256SUMS before installing anything. A mismatch stops with nothing written. It installs to ~/.local/bin (macOS and Linux) or %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\clue (Windows) and needs no administrator rights. Set CLUE_INSTALL to choose a different directory or CLUE_VERSION to pin a release. Because the command pipes a script into a shell, you may prefer to read install.sh or install.ps1 first. The manual steps below do the same work by hand.

The Go route installs under $(go env GOPATH)/bin, which you may need to add to PATH yourself; it reports dev rather than a release version unless you install a tagged version.

Install by hand instead — release assets, checksums, and macOS Gatekeeper

To install by hand — or on a machine where neither script can run — open the latest Cliewen release and download SHA256SUMS plus the binary for your machine into an otherwise empty download directory:

Machine	Release asset
Windows x64	clue-<version>-windows-amd64.exe
Windows ARM64	clue-<version>-windows-arm64.exe
macOS on Intel	clue-<version>-darwin-amd64
macOS on Apple silicon	clue-<version>-darwin-arm64
Linux x86-64	clue-<version>-linux-amd64
Linux ARM64	clue-<version>-linux-arm64

Then:

1. Verify the downloaded binary's SHA-256 matches its line in SHA256SUMS.

System	Built-in checksum command
Windows PowerShell	Get-FileHash <asset> -Algorithm SHA256
macOS	shasum -a 256 <asset>
Linux	sha256sum <asset>

2. Rename the binary to clue.exe on Windows or clue on macOS and Linux. On macOS and Linux, also make it executable with chmod +x clue.
3. Move it into a directory on your user PATH. On Windows, a folder such as %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\clue works once added through "Edit environment variables for your account." On macOS and Linux, ~/.local/bin is a common choice; add it to your shell's PATH if needed.
4. Open a new terminal and run clue version. It should print the version you downloaded.

The macOS binaries are unsigned and not notarized, so a binary you download through a browser can be blocked by Gatekeeper. First confirm the checksum matches, try clue version once, then open System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. Apple documents this exception in Open a Mac app from an unknown developer. The install script avoids this: a download made outside the browser carries no quarantine attribute.

Stay current

To check for an upgrade, run clue latest. When you are behind, it reports the newest release, the install route for your machine, and the clue migrate sequence for the repository. It installs nothing, writes nothing in your repository, and exits 0 even when it cannot reach the network. That makes it safe in a script or at a coding agent's session start, where --quiet stays silent unless there is something to say.

To upgrade later, rerun the same install command. That moves the binary only. For a repository already using Cliewen, preview and apply the coordinated corpus and carrier migration with clue migrate, as Operate safely explains.

Next

Install from inside Claude Code instead.