Installation

Prerequisites

Rust 1.85 or later (install via rustup)
Node.js 18+ (only needed for the VSCode extension)
C compiler (for building the tree-sitter parser — usually pre-installed on Linux/macOS)

Building from Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/user/rust-plc.git
cd rust-plc

# Build the CLI tool
cargo build -p st-cli --release

# The binary is at:
./target/release/st-cli --help

Verify Installation

# Check version
st-cli help

# Parse and check a sample file
st-cli check playground/01_hello.st

# Run a program
st-cli run playground/01_hello.st

Expected output:

playground/01_hello.st: OK

Executed 1 cycle(s) in 8.5µs (avg 8.5µs/cycle, 16 instructions)

Installing the VSCode Extension

See VSCode Setup for detailed instructions.

Using the Devcontainer

The easiest way to get started is with the included devcontainer:

Open the repository in VSCode
Click “Reopen in Container” when prompted (or Ctrl+Shift+P → “Dev Containers: Reopen in Container”)
Wait for the container to build and the post-create script to finish
Open any .st file in the playground/ folder

The devcontainer automatically:

Installs Rust and Node.js
Builds st-cli
Installs the VSCode extension
Configures syntax highlighting and LSP