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Installation

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Installation

#Requirements

  • Go 1.26+ if building from source
  • Git for cloning the repository (and for portable stores)
  • A GitHub token for any command that talks to GitHub (sync, refresh)
  • An OpenAI API key only for embed, refresh (embed stage), and any future summary commands
  • gh CLI optional, used by gitcrawl only as a token source via gh auth token

gitcrawl runs on macOS and Linux. Windows is not actively tested.

#Install from Homebrew

brew install openclaw/tap/gitcrawl

Homebrew installs the gitcrawl binary. GitHub CLI shim behavior moved to Octopool.

#Install from a GitHub release

Each tagged release publishes archives for darwin_amd64, darwin_arm64, linux_amd64, and linux_arm64 via GoReleaser.

# Replace VERSION and PLATFORM with the values you want.
VERSION=v0.1.2
PLATFORM=darwin_arm64
mkdir -p "$HOME/bin"
curl -L "https://github.com/openclaw/gitcrawl/releases/download/${VERSION}/gitcrawl_${VERSION#v}_${PLATFORM}.tar.gz" \
  | tar -xz -C "$HOME/bin" gitcrawl

gitcrawl --version

Browse the releases page for the latest tag and the full asset list. Use a directory that is already on your PATH; ~/bin and ~/.local/bin avoid needing elevated permissions.

#Check for updates

gitcrawl check-update
gitcrawl check-update --json

Interactive terminal runs perform a cached daily release check and print a stderr notice when a newer OpenClaw release is available. Scripted, JSON, CI, and non-TTY runs skip the passive notice. Set GITCRAWL_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1 or CRAWLKIT_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1 to disable it.

#Install from source

git clone https://github.com/openclaw/gitcrawl.git
cd gitcrawl
go build \
  -ldflags "-X github.com/openclaw/gitcrawl/internal/cli.version=$(git describe --tags --always --dirty)" \
  -o bin/gitcrawl ./cmd/gitcrawl

./bin/gitcrawl --version

Symlink or copy bin/gitcrawl somewhere on your PATH (~/bin, /usr/local/bin, ~/.local/bin).

#GitHub CLI shim migration

gitcrawl gh moved to Octopool:

octopool login
octopool gh api repos/openclaw/openclaw/pulls/123

See the gh shim guide for migration details.

#Verify the install

gitcrawl init           # creates config and data under platform default paths
gitcrawl doctor         # confirms config, database, and credential discovery
gitcrawl doctor --json  # same, machine-readable

doctor reports whether GITHUB_TOKEN and OPENAI_API_KEY are present, where they came from, the version, repository count, and the last sync timestamp. If anything is missing, the message tells you which env var or config field to set.

#Updating

  • Release archives: download the new tarball and replace the binary.
  • Source builds: git pull && go build ... — the version string comes from git describe.
  • Configuration is forward-compatible. Existing config.toml and gitcrawl.db files are reused across versions; no migration step is needed for normal point releases. Existing ~/.config/gitcrawl/config.toml installs continue to load from that path until the new platform config path exists.