Skip to main content

Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/firedancer-io/firedancer/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Firedancer must be built from source and currently only supports building and running on Linux. This guide will walk you through installing all the necessary prerequisites and dependencies.

​
Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure your system meets these requirements:
Firedancer requires a recent Linux kernel, at least v4.18. This corresponds to Ubuntu 20.04, Fedora 29, Debian 11, or RHEL 8.

​
Required Software

You need the following software installed on your system:
  • GCC version 8.5 or higher - Only GCC versions 11, 12, and 13 are officially supported and tested by the Firedancer developers
  • rustup - Rust toolchain installer available at rustup.rs
  • clang - C language family frontend for LLVM
  • git - Version control system
  • make - Build automation tool
Firedancer currently builds the Agave validator as a dependency, which requires a full Rust toolchain. Once Firedancer is able to stand alone, this will no longer be required.

​
Clone the Repository

First, clone the Firedancer source code with all submodules: 
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/firedancer-io/firedancer.git
cd firedancer
1

Checkout the latest release

After cloning, checkout the latest Frankendancer release tag:
git checkout v0.xxx.yyyyy  # Replace with latest Frankendancer release
Check the Releases Guide for the latest version tag.
2

Install system dependencies

Run the deps.sh script to install system packages and compile library dependencies:
./deps.sh
This script will:
  • Install system packages via your system’s package manager
  • Compile library dependencies
  • Output compiled dependencies to the ./opt directory

​
Understanding Releases

Firedancer does not produce pre-built binaries, so you must build from source. Releases are made available as tags with the following naming convention:
Do not use the main branch. The main branch is bleeding edge and includes all Firedancer development and changes that could break Frankendancer.

​
Version Format: v0.xxx.yyyyy

The Frankendancer versioning has three components:
  • Major version is always 0 - The first full Firedancer release will be 1.x
  • Minor version increments by 100 for each new Frankendancer release, then by 1 for minor versions within that release
  • Patch number encodes the Agave validator version (e.g., Agave v1.17.14 is represented as 11714)

​
Release Branch Example

================= main branch =================
   \                             \
    \ v0.100.11814                \ v0.200.11901
     \                             \
      \ v0.100.11815                \ v0.201.11902
       \
        \ v0.101.11815

​
Next Steps

Now that you have installed all dependencies, you’re ready to:

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us