Download Bootstrapping

Each archive holds three commands, bootstrapping, bst (the same command, shorter) and bootstrapping-demo, with the license files and the README. The links always point to the latest release.

Checksums are in SHA256SUMS. Every release is listed on GitHub.

Install

On Linux or macOS:

tar -xzf bootstrapping_linux_amd64.tar.gz
sudo mv bootstrapping bst bootstrapping-demo /usr/local/bin/
bst version

On Windows, unzip the archive and put the three .exe files somewhere on your PATH.

The Linux and Windows binaries are statically linked, SQLite included, so they need nothing else installed. The macOS binaries aren’t signed by Apple, so macOS may block the first run; allow it in System Settings under Privacy & Security, or run xattr -d com.apple.quarantine bootstrapping bst bootstrapping-demo.

Every binary is built by the release workflow on GitHub, from the exact commit the tests passed on, each on its own kind of machine. Before a release goes out, each set runs a smoke check there: the demo, a Python script that drives the command through the demo’s story and checks every exit code and table, and eight processes applying at once.

Try It

bootstrapping-demo

It runs an application’s roles and permissions through three seed versions, with an admin’s edits in between, a conflict, and an apply it kills halfway through, and ends with “All checks passed.” The quick start walks through the same thing by hand.

From Go

The library works with any database/sql driver for SQLite and needs Go 1.24 or later:

go get github.com/bootstrapping-engine/bootstrapping@latest

Build From Source

The commands use a cgo SQLite driver, so building them needs a C compiler:

git clone https://github.com/bootstrapping-engine/bootstrapping
cd bootstrapping
go test ./...
go build ./cmd/bootstrapping

The code is under the Apache License 2.0.