Installation

rq is a domain-specific language designed for managing and executing HTTP requests.

This document describes how to install the rq VS Code extension.

VS Code extension

The rq VS Code extension is distributed through the VS Code Marketplace

The extension uses the rq CLI as its backend. When the extension starts it will:

• Check whether the rq CLI is available on your system.
• Compare the installed CLI version with the extension version.
• If the CLI is missing or outdated, offer to install it from scratch or update it.

The installation and update of the CLI are handled automatically by the extension using platform-specific scripts:

• On Linux and macOS it runs the Bash installer script deployment/install-rq.sh.
• On Windows it runs the PowerShell installer script deployment/install-rq.ps1.

The install behaviour depends on the platform:

The binary is installed to a local directory:

• Linux / macOS: ~/.local/bin
• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\rq

The extension will use the binary directly from this location.

On Ubuntu Desktop (and many other modern Linux distributions), ~/.local/bin is typically already in your PATH. This means you can run the rq command from your terminal immediately after installation (you may need to open a new terminal window).

On macOS, Windows, and other systems where ~/.local/bin is not in the PATH, you will need to add the installation directory to your PATH manually if you wish to use the CLI outside of VS Code.

CLI (Manual Download)

If you prefer not to rely on the extension to install the CLI, or if you want to use the CLI independently, you can download the prebuilt portable binary directly from the GitHub Releases page. The binaries are self-contained and do not require any additional runtime or installation steps.

1. Open the Releases page in your browser:
   • https://github.com/rqlang/rq/releases
2. In the Assets section of the release, download the file that matches your platform:
   • Windows: rq-windows-x86_64.exe
   • Linux (Ubuntu 22.04 x86_64): rq-linux-ubuntu-22.04-x86_64
   • Linux (other x86_64): rq-linux-x86_64
   • macOS Intel (x86_64): rq-macos-x86_64
   • macOS Apple Silicon (M1/M2): rq-macos-aarch64
3. Optionally rename the downloaded file to a shorter name (for example rq).
4. Make the file executable (Linux / macOS):

  chmod +x ./rq-linux-x86_64

1. Either run it directly from the download location:

  ./rq-linux-x86_64 --version

Or move it to a directory on your `PATH` (for example `/usr/local/bin` or `~/.local/bin`) and run it from anywhere:

  mv ./rq-linux-x86_64 /usr/local/bin/rq
  rq --version

On Windows, you can run the portable executable directly after downloading (for example from your Downloads folder):

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

For convenience, you can also move rq-windows-x86_64.exe to a folder that is already on your PATH (or update the PATH environment variable) so that you can run rq from any directory.