Installing

⏱ 3 min · 🎯 you'll have: sunscreen --version working in your terminal.

Sunscreen ships as a single binary. Three install paths, in order of recommendation.

Pre-requisites

You need a recent stable Rust toolchain on your PATH. If you don't have it:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

The other Solana tools (anchor, solana, cargo-build-sbf, pnpm, …) are checked at runtime by sunscreen doctor. You only need them when you actually run the corresponding command.

Option 1 — installer script (recommended)

The fastest path. Works on macOS (x86_64, aarch64) and Linux (x86_64, aarch64).

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf \
  https://github.com/Pantani/sunscreen/releases/download/v0.1.0/sunscreen-installer.sh \
  | sh

The script installs to ~/.cargo/bin/sunscreen. Restart your shell or source ~/.cargo/env so the binary is on PATH.

Option 2 — cargo install

If you already have a Rust toolchain and prefer to build locally:

cargo install --git https://github.com/Pantani/sunscreen --tag v0.1.0 sunscreen

This compiles from source (~2 minutes on a modern laptop) and places the binary in ~/.cargo/bin.

Option 3 — download the archive

Releases include pre-built tarballs and zips:

  1. Open https://github.com/Pantani/sunscreen/releases/latest.
  2. Download the archive matching your platform (sunscreen-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.xz, sunscreen-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.xz, …).
  3. Extract and move sunscreen into a directory on your $PATH.

Verify

sunscreen --version
# sunscreen 0.1.0

Run the doctor to see which Solana tools sunscreen detected:

sunscreen doctor

You'll see a table. Anything reported missing will be required only when you run a command that needs it. For example, you can chain new without anchor installed, but you'll need anchor to chain build.

Updating

  • Installer script: re-run with the new version URL.
  • cargo install: re-run with --force and the new --tag.
  • Archive: download a new tarball.

Uninstall

rm "$(which sunscreen)"

Sunscreen does not write to global directories outside the binary itself. Per-workspace state lives in your project folder.

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