Environment Setup
This is the first stage. There is no project on your machine yet, so the only
thing to install is the tool that creates one. The language runtimes a project
needs — a JDK, Maven, Rust, the Android SDK — are installed later by
mars init, once the platforms that
need them exist.
Requirements
| Tool | Version | Needed for |
|---|---|---|
| Node | >= 22.12.0 | running the mars CLI itself |
| pnpm | >= 9.0.0 | installing dependencies in the generated project |
These two are the only up-front requirements.
Step 1 — Enable pnpm
If pnpm is missing, enable it through the Corepack shim that ships with Node:
corepack enable pnpm
Everything else — JDK, Maven, Rust, Android SDK — is derived from the platforms you select in the Start a Project stage.
Step 2 — Install the CLI
pnpm add -g @marsquakes/cli
The package is named @marsquakes/cli, but the command it installs is mars:
mars --help
Prefer not to install globally? pnpm dlx @marsquakes/cli create my-app works
too, and always fetches the latest version.
Step 3 — Verify
Both commands should report a version number that meets the table above:
node --version
pnpm --version
If mars is not found after a global install, open a new terminal — a freshly
installed global bin directory is not on the PATH of a shell that was already
open.
Next
With the CLI in place you are ready to start a project.