Catala Installers

Status: work in progress — not ready for general use yet.

Native installers for the Catala toolchain.

This repository is Windows-only. On Linux, macOS, and WSL, install via opam instead — see the Catala installation guide.

Windows

A self-contained Windows installer (.msi): it bundles a complete, relocatable snapshot of catala, clerk, catala-lsp, catala-dap, catala-format and the native compilation toolchain (MinGW-w64 gcc, flexlink, ninja) that clerk build needs — so no separate OCaml/opam setup is required to install or use it. (opam is used to build the installer.)

Install

Download catala-<version>-windows-x86_64.msi from the releases page and run it — double-click and accept the UAC prompt, or from an elevated terminal (msiexec /i catala-<version>-windows-x86_64.msi; add /qn for silent).

It installs per-machine to C:\ProgramData\Catala, adds it to the system PATH, and needs administrator rights. Open a new terminal afterwards for PATH to take effect. (A no-admin per-user build — %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Catala — is also available; see HACKING.md.)

The snippets below use $base = "C:\ProgramData\Catala" for the install directory.

Windows Defender exclusions (optional, faster builds)

Catala's build/test loop spawns many short-lived native compilers; Defender's real-time scanning of those slows clerk test noticeably. You can opt into scoped exclusions (install dir + the bundled compilers). This needs admin (one UAC prompt) and is optional — the toolchain works without it, just slower.

At install time:

msiexec /i catala-<version>-windows-x86_64.msi TUNE_DEFENDER=1

Or anytime after, with the bundled script (use -Remove to undo):

& "$base\toolchain\libexec\defender.ps1" -Add -SelfElevate -InstallDir "$base"

On a locked-down machine where you cannot elevate, the script prints the exact exclusion list so IT can push it via GPO/Intune. For unattended per-machine rollout (Intune/GPO), install the per-machine MSI silently with TUNE_DEFENDER=1.

VS Code extension

The installer installs the Catala VS Code extension for you by default: the VS Code extension checkbox (ticked) runs code --install-extension on the bundled catala-<version>.vsix during install. If VS Code isn't present the install still succeeds and leaves a Start-Menu shortcut ("Install Catala VS Code extension") to add it later.

Restart VS Code afterwards — fully quit, don't just reload the window — so the extension picks up the new PATH; otherwise catala won't be found and formatting/LSP won't work until VS Code is relaunched from a fresh environment.

Manual install (fallback) — only if you unticked the box or added VS Code later: double-click install-vscode-extension.cmd in $base, or run code --install-extension (Get-ChildItem "$base\catala-*.vsix").FullName (needs the code command on PATH). Uninstalling Catala leaves the extension in place; you can also install Catala from the VS Code Marketplace, but the bundled .vsix matches the toolchain version you just installed.

Uninstall

Use Settings → Apps → Installed apps → Catala, or msiexec /x catala-<version>-windows-x86_64.msi /qn. This also removes the PATH entry and any Defender exclusions the installer added.

Licensing

These installers and the Catala tools they install are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.

Windows bundles additionally include components licensed under the GNU General Public License v3 (GPL-3.0-or-later):

• GCC (gcc.exe, as.exe, ld.exe) and binutils, from winlibs
• liblto_plugin.dll

These components are redistributed unmodified; source is available at https://github.com/brechtsanders/winlibs_mingw. The MinGW-w64 and GCC runtime support libraries (libgcc*.a, libgmp.dll.a, MinGW-w64 .a stubs) are licensed under permissive terms (ZLib, BSD-2, public domain, or the GCC Runtime Library Exception) and impose no GPL obligations on programs compiled with them.