# Installation

If you just want to play with basic circuits, you may find [zkrepl.dev](https://battlezips.gitbook.io/battlezips/development/ide#zkrepl.dev) to be a lightweight option. Otherwise, you will need to install rust to build and install the Circom binary on your machine. This is the only time you will have to use Rust.

### Install the Circom Binary

[Quoted from the Circom docs](https://docs.circom.io/getting-started/installation/#installing-circom)

> ### Installing dependencies <a href="#installing-dependencies" id="installing-dependencies"></a>
>
> You need several dependencies in your system to run `circom` and its associated tools.
>
> * The core tool is the `circom` compiler which is written in Rust. To have Rust available in your system, you can install `rustup`. If you’re using Linux or macOS, open a terminal and enter the following command:
>
> ```shell
> curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh
> ```
>
> * We also distribute a series of npm packages so `Node.js` and some package manager like `npm` or `yarn` should be available in your system. Recent versions of `Node.js` include big integer support and web assembly compilers that help run code faster, so to get a better performance, install version 10 or higher.
>
> ### Installing circom <a href="#installing-circom" id="installing-circom"></a>
>
> To install from our sources, clone the `circom` repository:
>
> ```
> git clone https://github.com/iden3/circom.git
> ```
>
> Enter the circom directory and use the cargo build to compile:
>
> ```
> cargo build --release
> ```
>
> The installation takes around 3 minutes to be completed. When the command successfully finishes, it generates the `circom` binary in the directory `target/release`. You can install this binary as follows:
>
> ```
> cargo install --path circom
> ```
>
> The previous command will install the `circom` binary in the directory `$HOME/.cargo/bin`.
>
> Now, you should be able to see all the options of the executable by using the `help` flag\
> .\
> .
>
> .

### Installing SnarkJS for Development

The officially recommended installation for SnarkJS is use npm or yarn to install the package globally. This enables SnarkJS from the command line.

```
npm i -g snarkjs
snarkjs
// should show help output if installed correctly
snarkjs g16... // how commands are formed in bash
```

For the purpose of version control, we hold the opinion that it is better to install SnarkJS at the application level rather than globally. We will use this convention throughout awesome-circom.

```
yarn add snarkjs
yarn snarkjs
// should show help output if installed correctly
yarn snarkjs g16... // how commands are formed in bash 
```

See the SnarkJS section for more information on the usage of SnarkJS, including production installation.

{% content-ref url="../snarkjs" %}
[snarkjs](https://battlezips.gitbook.io/battlezips/development/snarkjs)
{% endcontent-ref %}