Download Sans

Sans compiles to native machine code via LLVM. The sans binary is a self-contained compiler — no package manager, no runtime to install.

macOS

Paste the following in your terminal:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/sans-language/sans/releases/latest/download/sans-macos-arm64.tar.gz | tar xz && sudo mv sans /usr/local/bin/

Works on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs (Intel runs via Rosetta 2). Verify the install:

sans --version

Prerequisites

xcode-select --install
brew install llvm@17

• Xcode Command Line Tools — required for the system linker (cc)
• LLVM 17 — Sans uses llc at runtime to compile programs. The sans binary finds it automatically from Homebrew.

Gatekeeper note

macOS may block the binary on first run since it is not notarized. To clear the quarantine flag after installing:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /usr/local/bin/sans

Linux

curl -fsSL https://github.com/sans-language/sans/releases/latest/download/sans-linux-x86_64.tar.gz | tar xz && sudo mv sans /usr/local/bin/

Prerequisites

sudo apt install build-essential llvm-17 libcurl4-openssl-dev libssl-dev

• GCC or Clang — system linker
• LLVM 17 — Sans uses llc at runtime to compile programs
• libcurl + libssl — for HTTP and TLS support

Windows

Download and extract the archive, then add sans.exe to your PATH:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/sans-language/sans/releases/latest/download/sans-windows-x86_64.tar.gz | tar xz && move sans.exe C:\usr\local\bin\

Or download manually from the table below and add the directory to your PATH. Verify the install:

sans --version

Prerequisites

Install MSYS2, then from a MINGW64 shell:

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-llvm mingw-w64-x86_64-clang mingw-w64-x86_64-curl mingw-w64-x86_64-openssl mingw-w64-x86_64-zlib

• LLVM 17+ — Sans uses llc at runtime to compile programs
• Clang — system linker
• libcurl + libssl + zlib — for HTTP, TLS, and compression support

Run sans from the MSYS2 MINGW64 shell so the dependencies are on the PATH.

Manual download

Build from source

Sans is self-hosted — the compiler is written in Sans. Building from source requires a bootstrap binary (any recent release) and LLVM 17.

git clone https://github.com/sans-language/sans
cd sans
sans build compiler/main.sans   # uses bootstrap binary to compile the compiler
sudo mv sans /usr/local/bin/

What's included

The sans binary is the full compiler. It compiles .sans source files to native executables via LLVM. No separate runtime is needed — the standard library is compiled from source alongside your program on each build.

sans build hello.sans   # produces ./hello
sans run hello.sans     # build + run, cleans up

See the documentation for language reference and examples.

All releases

All release archives and changelogs are on the GitHub releases page.