Quick start

For the x86_64 architecture, download the launcher from GitHub release assets with

curl -fL https://github.com/Virtuslab/scala-cli/releases/latest/download/scala-cli-x86_64-pc-linux.gz | gzip -d > scala-cli
chmod +x scala-cli
sudo mv scala-cli /usr/local/bin/scala-cli

For the ARM64 (aarch64) architecture, use:

curl -fL https://github.com/Virtuslab/scala-cli/releases/latest/download/scala-cli-aarch64-pc-linux.gz | gzip -d > scala-cli
chmod +x scala-cli
sudo mv scala-cli /usr/local/bin/scala-cli

Check that it runs fine by running its version command:

scala-cli version

Scala CLI can be installed via apt packager tool.

sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -sS "https://virtuslab.github.io/scala-cli-packages/scala-cli-archive-keyring.gpg" | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/scala-cli-archive-keyring.gpg > /dev/null
sudo curl -s --compressed -o /etc/apt/sources.list.d/scala_cli_packages.list "https://virtuslab.github.io/scala-cli-packages/debian/scala_cli_packages.list"
sudo apt update
sudo apt install scala-cli

The Debian package can be downloaded at this address.

Alternatively, you can download it and install it manually with:

curl -fLo scala-cli.deb https://github.com/Virtuslab/scala-cli/releases/latest/download/scala-cli-x86_64-pc-linux.deb
sudo dpkg -i scala-cli.deb

Scala CLI can also be installed as part of the Scala language distribution (under the scala command), which bundles Scala CLI. The Scala Debian package can be downloaded from the assets of the latest Scala release (scala3-<version>-x86_64-pc-linux.deb) and installed in the same way.

Scala CLI can be installed via the dnf package manager.

cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/virtuslab.repo
[virtuslab-repo]
name=VirtusLab Repo
baseurl=https://virtuslab.github.io/scala-cli-packages/CentOS/Packages
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://virtuslab.github.io/scala-cli-packages/KEY.gpg
EOF
sudo dnf list --repo=virtuslab-repo
sudo dnf install scala-cli

On older systems without dnf (e.g. RHEL/CentOS 7), use yum instead of dnf (to list the repository packages, use sudo yum repo-pkgs virtuslab-repo list).

The RPM package can be downloaded at this address.

Alternatively, you can download it and install it manually with:

curl -fLo scala-cli.rpm https://github.com/Virtuslab/scala-cli/releases/latest/download/scala-cli-x86_64-pc-linux.rpm
sudo rpm -i scala-cli.rpm

Scala CLI can also be installed as part of the Scala language distribution (under the scala command), which bundles Scala CLI. The Scala RPM package can be downloaded from the assets of the latest Scala release (scala3-<version>-x86_64-pc-linux.rpm) and installed in the same way.

Download the launcher from GitHub release assets with

wget -q -O scala-cli.gz  https://github.com/Virtuslab/scala-cli/releases/latest/download/scala-cli-x86_64-pc-linux-static.gz && gunzip scala-cli.gz
chmod +x scala-cli
mv scala-cli /usr/bin/

Check that it runs fine by running its version command:

scala-cli version

Scala CLI can be installed via Nix with:

nix profile install nixpkgs#scala-cli

Without flakes, use nix-env -iA nixpkgs.scala-cli instead (nixos.scala-cli on NixOS). To try it out without installing, run nix-shell -p scala-cli.

Scala CLI (as scala-cli) can be installed via SDKMAN with:

sdk install scalacli

It can also be installed as part of the Scala language distribution (under the scala command), which bundles Scala CLI.

sdk install scala

Note that the Windows manual installation requires Visual C++ redistributable to be installed. See below for how to install it.

Download the launcher from GitHub release assets with

curl -fLo scala-cli.zip https://github.com/Virtuslab/scala-cli/releases/latest/download/scala-cli-x86_64-pc-win32.zip
tar -xf scala-cli.zip

Check that it runs fine by running its version command:

scala-cli version

If you get an error about a missing DLL (such as VCRUNTIME140.dll), you have to install Visual C++ redistributable. A valid version is distributed with the Scala CLI launchers. You can download it here, and install it by double-clicking on it. Once the Visual C++ redistributable runtime is installed, check that the Scala CLI runs fine by running its version command:

scala-cli version

Note that the commands above don't put the scala-cli command in the PATH. For that, you can create a directory, move the launcher there, and add the directory to the PATH with

md "%USERPROFILE%/scala-cli"
scala-cli --power add-path "%USERPROFILE%/scala-cli"
move scala-cli.exe "%USERPROFILE%/scala-cli"

Download MSI installer with Scala CLI for Windows

Scala CLI can also be installed as part of the Scala language distribution (under the scala command), which bundles Scala CLI. The Scala MSI installer can be downloaded from the assets of the latest Scala release (scala3-<version>.msi).

Scala CLI (as scala-cli) can be installed via SDKMAN with:

sdk install scalacli

It can also be installed as part of the Scala language distribution (under the scala command), which bundles Scala CLI.

sdk install scala

To install Scala CLI (as scala-cli) via Chocolatey, run the following command from the command line or from PowerShell:

choco install scala-cli

It can also be installed as part of the Scala language distribution (under the scala command), which bundles Scala CLI.

choco install scala

To install Scala CLI via Scoop, run the following command from the command line or from PowerShell:

scoop install scala-cli

To install Scala CLI via WinGet, run the following command from the command line or from PowerShell:

winget install virtuslab.scalacli

For a Mac with the arm64 architecture run the following commands:

curl -fL https://github.com/Virtuslab/scala-cli/releases/latest/download/scala-cli-aarch64-apple-darwin.gz | gzip -d > scala-cli
chmod +x scala-cli
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
sudo mv scala-cli /usr/local/bin/scala-cli

Otherwise, for a Mac with non-arm64 architecture (pre-M1) run the following commands:

curl -fL https://github.com/Virtuslab/scala-cli/releases/latest/download/scala-cli-x86_64-apple-darwin.gz | gzip -d > scala-cli
chmod +x scala-cli
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
sudo mv scala-cli /usr/local/bin/scala-cli

Check that it runs fine by running its version command:

scala-cli version

Download the PKG installer with Scala CLI for MacOS

The installer isn't signed, so macOS blocks it when you first open it. Close the warning, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. On macOS 14 and older, you can instead right-click the downloaded file in Finder and choose "Open".

The installer links scala-cli into /usr/local/bin. If that directory doesn't exist, create it before installing with:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin

Scala CLI (as scala-cli) can be installed via homebrew with:

brew install scala-cli

It can also be installed as part of the Scala language distribution (under the scala command). scala-cli is then pulled as a dependency.

brew install scala

Scala CLI can be installed via Nix with:

nix profile install nixpkgs#scala-cli

Without flakes, use nix-env -iA nixpkgs.scala-cli instead (nixos.scala-cli on NixOS). To try it out without installing, run nix-shell -p scala-cli.

Scala CLI (as scala-cli) can be installed via SDKMAN with:

sdk install scalacli

It can also be installed as part of the Scala language distribution (under the scala command), which bundles Scala CLI.

sdk install scala

FreeBSD support (and support for other BSDs) is currently experimental and not stable. Scala CLI is not being distributed for FreeBSD, but you can install it via Coursier's standalone JAR.

Before running Coursier and installing Scala CLI, make sure you have Java 17 or higher installed and in your $PATH:

pkg install openjdk17

Note: Java 17 has to be installed manually on BSD systems at this time.

Download Coursier via the Any JAR option.

After downloading Coursier, you can use it to install Scala CLI:

chmod +x coursier
./coursier install scala-cli

Scala CLI is now installed on your system. It is installed as a JAR rather than a native binary, and so the startup time is slightly longer.

To run scala-cli anywhere on your system, you need to add its binary path to the $PATH variable. For a given user-directory:

export PATH="$PATH:/home/user-directory/.local/share/coursier/bin"

Add this command to your shell's RC file to make the setting permanent.

Depending on the Java distribution you are using, it has been observed that Bloop (the build server used by Scala CLI) may have trouble starting on FreeBSD. You may try to customise Bloop JVM options with the BLOOP_JAVA_OPTS environment variable. Alternatively, you may skip using the build server altogether and use the compiler directly by passing the --server=false option. Please note that doing this will noticably extend project build times.

scala-cli run -e 'println("Hello FreeBSD")' --server=false

Any features relying on third-party JVMs (such as --jvm and package --native-image) may not work on FreeBSD, as those JVMs may not have BSD distributions provided. They may be made to work when a compatible JVM path is provided directly (refer to individual sub-commands' --help).