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Version: 2.21

Prerequisites

To run Pants, you need:

  • One of:
    • Linux (x86_64 or ARM64)
    • macOS (Intel or Apple Silicon, 10.15 Catalina or newer)
    • Microsoft Windows 10 with WSL 2
  • Internet access (so that Pants can fully bootstrap itself)
Restricted Internet access?

See Restricted Internet access for instructions.

System-specific notes​

Linux​

Some Linux distributions may need additional packages

On Ubuntu you may need to run: apt install -y python3-dev python3-distutils.

Alpine Linux is not yet supported

Pants for Linux is currently distributed as a manylinux wheel. Alpine Linux is not covered by manylinux (it uses MUSL libc while manylinux requires glibc), so at present Pants will not run on Alpine Linux.

If you need to run Pants on Alpine, let us know, so we can prioritize this work. Meanwhile, you can try building Pants yourself on Alpine.

Linux on ARM will be supported from Pants 2.16

Pants 2.16 will be distributed for Linux x86_64 and ARM64. Earlier versions are only distributed for Linux x86_64.

If you need to run an earlier version of Pants on ARM, you can try building Pants yourself on that platform.

macOS​

Apple Silicon (M1/M2) support

If running Pants inside a Docker container on an Apple Silicon machine you may need to set --no-watch-filesystem --no-pantsd. This is because notifications on native macOS files aren't mirrored over to the virtualized Linux system.

We don't recommend setting this permanently, as these options are crucial for performance when iterating. Instead, you may want to look at the new Environments feature, that lets Pants run natively on macOS but selectively invoke processes in a Docker container.

Microsoft Windows​

Windows 10 support

Pants runs on Windows 10 under the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL):

  • Follow these instructions to install WSL 2.
  • Install a recent Linux distribution under WSL 2 (we have tested with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS).
  • Run sudo apt install unzip python3-dev python3-distutils python3-venv gcc in the distribution.
  • You can then run Pants commands in a Linux shell, or in a Windows shell by prefixing with wsl .

Projects using Pants must be contained within the Linux virtual machine:

  • Navigating a Linux shell to a Windows directory via the /mnt directory, or using the wsl prefix with a Windows shell in a Windows directory, and executing Pants may result in unexpected behavior.