Get Fuchsia source code

This guide provides instructions on how to set up the Fuchsia development environment on your machine for building Fuchsia from source.

The steps are:

  1. Prerequisites.
  2. Download the Fuchsia source code.
  3. Set up environment variables.

Prerequisites

Before you start, complete the following tasks:

Run preflight

We recommend you run ffx platform preflight, which examines your machine and informs you of issues that may affect building Fuchsia from source or running the Fuchsia emulator.

  • {Linux}

    curl -sO https://storage.googleapis.com/fuchsia-ffx/ffx-linux-x64 && chmod +x ffx-linux-x64 && ./ffx-linux-x64 platform preflight
    
  • {macOS}

    curl -sO https://storage.googleapis.com/fuchsia-ffx/ffx-macos-x64 && chmod +x ffx-macos-x64 && ./ffx-macos-x64 platform preflight
    

Install required packages

The Fuchsia project requires curl, unzip, and git to be up to date.

Note: Fuchsia requires the version of Git to be 2.28 or higher.

  • {Linux}

    Install (or update) the following packages:

    sudo apt-get install curl git unzip
    
  • {macOS}

    Install the Xcode command line tools:

    Note: Skip this step if ffx platform preflight discovers that Xcode tools are installed on your machine.

    xcode-select --install
    

Download Fuchsia source

Fuchsia's bootstrap script creates a fuchsia directory and downloads the content of the Fuchsia source repository to this new directory.

Note: Downloading Fuchsia source requires ~2 GiB of space on your machine. In addition, you will need another 80-90 GiB of space when you build Fuchsia, depending on your build configuration.

To download the Fuchsia source, do the following:

  1. Select a directory for downloading the Fuchsia source code, for example:

    Note: While you can set up Fuchsia in any directory, this guide uses the home directory.

    cd ~
    
  2. Run the bootstrap script:

    curl -s "https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/fuchsia/+/HEAD/scripts/bootstrap?format=TEXT" | base64 --decode | bash
    

    This script creates a fuchsia directory to download the source code. Downloading Fuchsia source can take up to 60 minutes.

    If you see the Invalid authentication credentials error during the bootstrapping process, see Authentication error for help.

Set up environment variables

Fuchsia recommends that you update your shell profile to include the following actions:

  • Add the .jiri_root/bin directory to your PATH.

    The .jiri_root/bin directory in the Fuchsia source contains the jiri{:.external} and fx tools are essential to Fuchsia workflows. Fuchsia uses the jiri tool to manage repositories in the Fuchsia project. The fx tool helps configure, build, run, and debug Fuchsia. The Fuchsia toolchain requires jiri to be available in your PATH.

  • Source the scripts/fx-env.sh file.

    Although it's not required, sourcing the fx-env.sh script enables useful shell functions in your terminal. For instance, it creates a FUCHSIA_DIR environment variable and provides the fd command for navigating directories with auto-completion (see comments in fx-env.sh for more information).

To update your shell profile with the changes above, do the following:

Note: If you don't wish to update your environment variables, see Work on Fuchsia without updating your PATH.

  1. Use a text editor to open your ~/.bash_profile file, for example:

    Note: This guide uses a bash terminal as an example. If you are using zsh, replace ~/.bash_profile with ~/.zprofile in the following steps:

    nano ~/.bash_profile
    
  2. Add the following lines to your ~/.bash_profile file:

    Note: If your Fuchsia source code is not located in the ~/fuchsia directory, replace ~/fuchsia with your Fuchsia directory.

    export PATH=~/fuchsia/.jiri_root/bin:$PATH
    source ~/fuchsia/scripts/fx-env.sh
    
  3. Save the file and exit the text editor.

  4. To update your environment variables, run the following command:

    source ~/.bash_profile
    
  5. Verify that you can run the following commands inside your fuchsia directory without error:

    jiri help
    
    fx help
    

Next steps

See Configure and build Fuchsia in the Getting started guide for the next steps.

Appendices

Authentication error

If you see the Invalid authentication credentials error during the bootstrap process, your ~/.gitcookies file may contain cookies from some repositories in googlesource.com that the bootstrap script wants to check out anonymously.

To resolve this error, do one of the following:

  • Follow the onscreen directions to get passwords for the specified repositories.
  • Delete the offending cookies from the .gitcookies file.

Work on Fuchsia without updating your PATH

The following sections provide alternative approaches to the Update your shell script section:

Copy the tool to your binary directory

If you don't wish to update your environment variables, but you want jiri to work in any directory, copy the jiri tool to your ~/bin directory, for example:

Note: If your Fuchsia source code is not located in the ~/fuchsia directory, replace ~/fuchsia with your Fuchsia directory.

cp ~/fuchsia/.jiri_root/bin/jiri ~/bin

However, you must have write access to the ~/bin directory without sudo. If you don't, jiri cannot keep itself up-to-date.

Add a symlink to your binary directory

Similarly, if you want to use the fx tool without updating your environment variables, provide the fx tool's symlink in your ~/bin directory, for example:

Note: If your Fuchsia source code is not located in the ~/fuchsia directory, replace ~/fuchsia with your Fuchsia directory.

ln -s ~/fuchsia/scripts/fx ~/bin

Alternatively, run the fx tool directly using its path, for example:

./scripts/fx help

In either case, you need jiri in your PATH.