Setup

Prerequisites

Rust ≥ 1.84 (2024 edition) with the wasm32-wasip2 target. Stable 1.84+ ships a wasm-component-ld that links wit-bindgen 0.50 output; older versions do not.
Node.js ≥ 20 and npm (for frontend builds; Vite 8 requires Node.js 20+)
Docker (optional, for local Turso/libSQL database)

Install Rust target

rustup target add wasm32-wasip2

Install forte CLI

Option A — cargo binstall (downloads a pre-built binary):

cargo binstall forte-cli

Option B — build from source (requires the monorepo):

cargo install --path forte/cli

Pre-built binaries for aarch64-apple-darwin, x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, and aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu are published to GitHub Releases on every version tag and picked up automatically by cargo binstall.

Install fn0 CLI (optional, for raw fn0 projects without Forte)

cargo binstall fn0-cli
# or from source:
cargo install --path fn0/cli

Local Database (Turso/libSQL)

The doc-db crate connects to Turso/libSQL.

Forte projects: forte dev downloads and starts sqld automatically — no manual setup needed. The database file is stored in .forte/data/ inside your project directory. TURSO_URL and TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN are injected automatically and do not need to be set for local development.

Running doc-db tests directly (outside of forte dev) requires a separately running libSQL server:

docker-compose up -d   # starts libsql on port 8080
cargo test -p doc-db

Environment variables for direct doc-db usage:

Variable	Default	Description
`TURSO_URL`	`http://127.0.0.1:8080`	Database URL
`TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN`	(empty)	Auth token (empty for local)

For production, set these to your Turso cloud credentials.

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Description
`COOKIE_SECRET`	Yes (if using `cookie_sign`)	HMAC secret for signed cookies
`TURSO_URL`	No	Database URL; injected automatically by `forte dev`
`TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN`	No	Database auth token; injected automatically by `forte dev`
`FN0_QUEUE_URL`	No	Queue endpoint; injected automatically by `forte dev`; required in production if using queue tasks
`FN0_OBJECT_STORAGE_URL`	No	Object storage endpoint; injected automatically by `forte dev`; required in production if using object storage
`OTEL_SERVICE_NAME`	No	Service name in OpenTelemetry traces and metrics (defaults to `"forte-app"`)

Creating a Forte Project

forte init my-app
cd my-app
forte dev

forte init scaffolds the project, installs npm packages, and prints next steps.

On the first forte dev run, two tools are downloaded automatically and cached in ~/.forte/bin/:

sqld (libSQL server) — for the local database
forte-rs-to-ts — Rust→TypeScript type generator

Subsequent runs use the cached binaries. See forte/cli.md#local-tool-cache for cache paths and how to clear them.

To deploy, authenticate first:

forte login          # PKCE flow: opens browser, exchanges code for token, saves credentials
forte deploy

See forte/overview.md for project layout and forte/cli.md for all CLI commands.