Installation and setup

There are two ways to get provekit-cli on a machine. Use cargo install when you just need the CLI and have your own circuit. Use a source checkout when you want the bundled Noir examples, the WASM/FFI/server crates, or you’re contributing to ProveKit.

Prerequisites

Requirement	Why it matters
Rust via rustup	Cargo installs and builds the CLI. Source builds use the toolchain pinned in rust-toolchain.toml.
Git (source path only)	Clones the repository and records exact commits for artifact provenance.
Go toolchain (optional)	Required only for recursive-verifier development.

Install the CLI

cargo install

cargo install provekit-cli
provekit-cli --help

This builds and installs the latest published release into ~/.cargo/bin/. Use this when you have your own Noir package and don’t need the bundled examples or extra tooling.

Pin a specific version for reproducible CI:

cargo install provekit-cli --version 1.0.0 --locked

source checkout

git clone https://github.com/worldfnd/provekit.git
cd provekit
rustup show               # confirms the pinned nightly is selected
cargo run --release --bin provekit-cli -- --help

This gives you the full workspace: examples in noir-examples/, WASM bindings in tooling/provekit-wasm/, FFI in tooling/provekit-ffi/, the verifier server, and the recursive-verifier Go module. Use this when you’re contributing to ProveKit or want to run the checked-in examples directly.

Toolchain handling

The cargo install path uses your default Rust toolchain. The source checkout honors rust-toolchain.toml automatically when you run Cargo from inside the repository.

Run the example proof

If you installed via cargo install, point the CLI at your own Noir package. To run the canonical example, you need a copy of noir-examples/basic/ from the repository:

With source checkout

cd noir-examples/basic
cargo run --release --bin provekit-cli -- prepare
cargo run --release --bin provekit-cli -- prove
cargo run --release --bin provekit-cli -- verify

With cargo install

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/worldfnd/provekit.git
cd provekit/noir-examples/basic
provekit-cli prepare
provekit-cli prove
provekit-cli verify

The cargo install binary doesn’t need cargo run --release --bin provekit-cli -- in front of every command; call provekit-cli directly.

If verify returns exit code 0, your setup is healthy.

Optional host tooling

Target	Additional tooling
Browser / Node.js	Build the WASM package in tooling/provekit-wasm/ and load .pkp / .pkv artifacts as bytes.
iOS	Build or consume the Swift SDK package mode used by your app, then link the required native artifacts. macOS is not supported.
Android	Package the JNI libraries required by the Kotlin/Android host and test on target ABIs.
Verifier server	Build the Rust HTTP server in tooling/verifier-server/ and configure the Go verifier binary path.
Recursive verifier	Use the Go module in recursive-verifier/ with the params_for_recursive_verifier and r1cs.json exported by the CLI.

All of these require a source checkout.

Verify your setup

A healthy setup satisfies all of these checks:

• provekit-cli --help (or cargo run --release --bin provekit-cli -- --help for source builds) prints the CLI help text.
• The Quickstart completes with verify returning exit code 0.