Building from Source

Shard is written in Rust with a React/Tauri frontend. Here’s how to build it yourself.

Prerequisites

Required

Rust (latest stable) - Install via rustup
Node.js 20+ or Bun - For the frontend
Git - To clone the repository

macOS


# Install Xcode command line tools
xcode-select --install
 
# Install Rust
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
 
# Install Bun (recommended) or Node.js
curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash

Linux


# Install system dependencies (Ubuntu/Debian)
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev build-essential curl wget file libssl-dev libayatana-appindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev
 
# Install Rust
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
 
# Install Bun
curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash

Windows

Install Visual Studio Build Tools
Install Rust
Install Bun or Node.js

Clone the Repository


git clone https://github.com/Th0rgal/shard.git
cd shard

Build the CLI

The CLI/core library is in the launcher/ directory:


# Development build (fast, unoptimized)
cargo build -p shard
 
# Release build (slow, optimized)
cargo build -p shard --release
 
# Run the CLI
cargo run -p shard -- --help

Build the Desktop App

The desktop app is in the desktop/ directory:


cd desktop
 
# Install frontend dependencies
bun install
 
# Development mode (with hot reload)
cargo tauri dev
 
# Build for production
cargo tauri build --release

The built app will be in desktop/src-tauri/target/release/bundle/.

Build Profiles

Profile	Command	Build Time	Use Case
`dev`	`cargo build`	~10s	Development, debugging
`dev-release`	`cargo build --profile dev-release`	~30s	Quick testing
`release`	`cargo build --release`	~3-5min	Production builds

Environment Variables

Create a .env file in the repository root:


# Required for Microsoft authentication
MICROSOFT_CLIENT_ID=your-client-id
 
# Optional: CurseForge API key
SHARD_CURSEFORGE_API_KEY=your-api-key

See .env.example for all available options.

Troubleshooting

Rust compilation errors

Make sure you have the latest Rust:


rustup update stable

Tauri build fails

Ensure you have all system dependencies installed. On macOS:


xcode-select --install

Frontend dependency issues

Clear and reinstall:


cd desktop
rm -rf node_modules bun.lockb
bun install