Cataractwiki

Getting Started

Install the toolchain, scaffold a project, serve a page.

Updated 1 min read

Three short steps stand between an empty directory and a served page: install Chapel, build the Cataract CLI, and run cataract new.

Cataract is source-only for now. There is no package manager, no lockfile and no dependency resolution step — you clone the framework, build the CLI once, and point projects at it.

In this section

  1. Installation — Chapel 2.x, a C compiler, and the CLI
  2. Your first application — a page, an API route, and a layout
  3. Project layout — what each directory under app/ means

The short version

git clone https://github.com/lunikos/cataract.git
cd cataract && make
export CATARACT_RUNTIME=$PWD/src/runtime
cataract new blog && cd blog
cataract build && ./dist/blog

If that sequence finishes with a server logging cataract listening on http://127.0.0.1:3000, the toolchain is working and the rest of this section is detail.