Installation

rq ships as two pieces that can be installed independently:

• the CLI (rq), to run and check .rq files from a terminal or a CI pipeline;
• the VS Code extension, which bundles its own copy of the rq engine, so it does not need the CLI.

Which method to use

Platform	Recommended	Alternatives
macOS (Apple Silicon or Intel)	Homebrew	Install script, manual download
Linux (x86_64 or aarch64)	Install script	Homebrew, manual download
Windows (x86_64)	WinGet	Scoop, manual download

Homebrew, WinGet and Scoop only carry stable releases. Pre-releases are published on the Releases page only, so use the install script with --release-tag or a manual download to try one.

Whatever the method, check the result with:

rq --version

CLI

Homebrew (macOS and Linux)

The formula lives in the rqlang/homebrew-tap tap and installs the binary for your platform and architecture:

brew install rqlang/tap/rqlang

The formula is called rqlang, but the command it installs is rq.

Task	Command
Upgrade	brew upgrade rqlang
Uninstall	brew uninstall rqlang

On Linux the same system requirements as the other methods apply.

WinGet (Windows)

rq is published in the WinGet community repository as rqlang.rq:

winget install --id rqlang.rq --exact

WinGet installs it as a portable package and puts rq on your PATH; open a new terminal before running it.

Task	Command
Upgrade	winget upgrade --id rqlang.rq --exact
Uninstall	winget uninstall --id rqlang.rq --exact

New versions reach WinGet through a pull request to microsoft/winget-pkgs, so they can appear there a few days after the GitHub release.

If you installed rq earlier with the former PowerShell install script, it lives in %LOCALAPPDATA%\rq. Delete that folder and remove it from your user PATH (or run deployment\uninstall-rq.ps1 from a clone of this repository) before switching to WinGet or Scoop, so that only one rq.exe is on the PATH.

Scoop (Windows)

The manifest lives in the rqlang/scoop-bucket bucket. Add the bucket once, then install:

scoop bucket add rqlang https://github.com/rqlang/scoop-bucket
scoop install rqlang/rqlang

The manifest is called rqlang, but the command it installs is rq.

Task	Command
Upgrade	scoop update rqlang
Uninstall	scoop uninstall rqlang

Install script (Linux and macOS)

The install script downloads the CLI binary for your platform and architecture (x86_64 or aarch64/Apple Silicon) from the latest GitHub release, checks it against the release’s SHA256SUMS, renames it to rq and copies it to a directory on your PATH:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rqlang/rq/main/deployment/install-rq.sh | bash

It needs curl and sha256sum (or shasum). Releases published before SHA256SUMS existed (0.7.0 and older) cannot be verified, so the script refuses to install them; download those manually.

The script runs the downloaded binary before installing it, so on a system that does not meet the requirements it stops with an error and installs nothing.

Where it installs depends on who runs it:

• As a regular user: ~/.local/bin/rq. No sudo needed, and only your user gets rq.

• As root: /usr/local/bin/rq, available to every user on the machine:

  curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rqlang/rq/main/deployment/install-rq.sh | sudo bash
  

Most Linux distributions already put ~/.local/bin on the PATH; macOS does not. If it is missing, the script says so and prints the line to add to your shell profile (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, …):

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

To install a specific release or choose the target directory yourself, pass options after bash -s --:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rqlang/rq/main/deployment/install-rq.sh | bash -s -- --release-tag 0.8.0 --install-dir /opt/rq/bin

Option	Meaning
-r, --release-tag TAG	Release to install (for example 0.8.0). Defaults to the latest release.
-d, --install-dir DIR	Directory to copy rq into. Overrides the default location.

Running the script again installs over the existing binary, so the same command upgrades rq.

To uninstall, delete the binary: rm ~/.local/bin/rq (or sudo rm /usr/local/bin/rq).

Manual download

Every release attaches a prebuilt, portable binary per platform. They need no installation step.

1. Open the Releases page and pick a release.

2. Under Assets, download the file for your platform, together with SHA256SUMS:

   Platform	Asset
   Windows x86_64	rq-windows-x86_64.exe
   macOS Apple Silicon	rq-macos-aarch64
   macOS Intel	rq-macos-x86_64
   Linux x86_64	rq-linux-x86_64
   Linux aarch64	rq-linux-aarch64

   rq-linux-ubuntu-22.04-x86_64 is the same file as rq-linux-x86_64, kept under its old name for existing download links.

3. Verify the download against SHA256SUMS. On Linux and macOS, first set asset to the name of the file you downloaded; the commands in this step and the next one use it:

   asset=rq-linux-x86_64
   sha256sum --check --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS
   

   On macOS use shasum -a 256 --check --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS; on Windows compare the output of Get-FileHash rq-windows-x86_64.exe with the line for that file. With the GitHub CLI you can also check that the file was built by this repository’s release workflow:

   gh attestation verify "$asset" --repo rqlang/rq
   

4. On Linux and macOS, make the file executable, rename it to rq and move it to a directory on your PATH:

   chmod +x "$asset"
   mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
   mv "$asset" ~/.local/bin/rq
   rq --version
   

   If rq is not found, add ~/.local/bin to your PATH as shown in the install script section.

   The macOS binaries are not signed, so macOS blocks a file downloaded with a browser when it first runs. If rq --version is blocked, remove the quarantine flag and run it again:

   xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ~/.local/bin/rq
   

On Windows, rename rq-windows-x86_64.exe to rq.exe and move it to a folder on your PATH (or add its folder to the PATH). You can also run it directly from the download folder:

cd $env:USERPROFILE\Downloads
.\rq-windows-x86_64.exe --version

Releases published before 0.8.0 do not include SHA256SUMS or the rq-linux-aarch64 binary.

Linux requirements

The Linux binaries, whichever way you install them, need glibc 2.34 or newer, which Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, RHEL 9 and later ship by default. OpenSSL is built into the binary, so no system libssl is needed; HTTPS uses the system CA certificates (the ca-certificates package).

Releases 0.7.0 and older were linked against the system OpenSSL and also need OpenSSL 3 (libssl.so.3).

VS Code extension

VS Code Marketplace

The extension is published on the VS Code Marketplace. Install it from the Extensions view by searching for rq, or from a terminal:

code --install-extension rq-lang.rq-language

Manual install from VSIX

Each release also attaches the extension as a .vsix file, for machines without Marketplace access.

1. Open the Releases page and pick a release.
2. Under Assets, download the .vsix file (for example rq-language-0.8.0.vsix).

3. Install it from a terminal:

   code --install-extension rq-language-0.8.0.vsix
   

   Or, in VS Code, open the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X), click the ... menu at the top of the panel and choose Install from VSIX….

   See Install from a VSIX in the VS Code documentation for details.