Getting Started

Download & Installation

The Radicle network can be accessed via Radicle Upstream, an open-source desktop client.

Radicle development is public by default and completely open-source. See Join our Community for information on our community channels.

DISCLAIMER 🌱

As the Software is of experimental nature and deployed for testing purposes in a testnet environment only, you acknowledge that this Beta Version of the Software is likely to contain bugs, defects, or errors (including any bug, defect, or error relating to or resulting from the display, manipulation, processing, storage, transmission, or use of data) that may materially and adversely affect the use, functionality, or performance of Radicle or any product or system containing or used in conjunction with Radicle.

You are aware and acknowledge that your processing, development, exchange, storage sharing, provision of, collaboration to or other involvement in Content on or via Radicle takes place in a testnet environment for testing purposes only. You acknowledge and agree that you have no claim to integrity and consistency regarding any Content whatsoever. You acknowledge and agree to the risk of total and irretrievable loss of Content throughout and after the Beta phase. You acknowledge and agree that any Content will most likely and without prior notice be irretrievably deleted upon completion of the testing phase. You acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for secure storage (e.g. backup copies) of Content and that the Foundation shall not be responsible and liable under any circumstance for any loss or corruption of Content.

Read the rest of our Terms of Use here.

Supported Platforms

Radicle Upstream is available for Linux and macOS (version 10.14 and newer).

→ You can download it here

Once you've downloaded the binary for your respective platform, start it like this:

On Linux:

1. Make the package executable with: chmod +x radicle-upstream-X.X.X.AppImage
2. Start the app: ./radicle-upstream-X.X.X.AppImage

On macOS:

1. Open the radicle-upstream-x.x.x.dmg package and install Upstream by dragging the Radicle Upstream binary to the /Applications folder.

Radicle Upstream packages are only compatible with macOS versions 10.14 and newer. The client can run on older versions (i.e. High Sierra) by building the app from source.

If you are installing on a Mac computer with Apple Silicon please note that you may experience issues as Radicle Upstream has not been tested on the Apple Silicon platform.

A Note on the Apple Developer Program

While we are participating in the Apple Developer Program to ensure accessibility to our macOS users, we do not agree with Apple's financial gatekeeping and increasing control over application distribution on their platform. Forcing developers to "pay-to-play" under the guise of a security solution is an extractive form of vendor lock-in that inhibits the growth and accessibility of open software.

On NixOS:

radicle-upstream is available on the unstable channel and it can be installed by running nix-env -iA nixos.radicle-upstream.

Please note that this is a third-party package.

Creating an identity

To create an identity on the Radicle network, use the Upstream client. After choosing a display name and setting a passphrase, it will generate a unique identifier — known as a Device ID — that's paired to the computer you've installed it on.

For now, this Device ID is the only way other users can find and collaborate with you. Later on, you will be able to manage multiple Device IDs under one user handle, enabling support and consistency across multiple devices.

Setting a passphrase

The client will also prompt you to create a passphrase. This passphrase isn't a private key — it is a password that decrypts your keypair to access and publish to the network. You will also be prompted for this passphrase when pushing and fetching code from your local machine to Radicle via your command line.

There is no way to recover this passphrase yet, so be sure to keep it in a very safe place!

Configuring your system

Setting up Git

To create and publish projects to the network, you must make sure your commits are associated with a username in Git.

You can do so by running the following command:

git config --global user.name "YOUR NAME"

For more help, refer to the relevant Git documentation.

Adding the remote helper

To publish code to the network via the Upstream client, you first have to add the Radicle gitremote-helper to your shell configuration.

• Add export PATH="$HOME/.radicle/bin:$PATH" to your shell configuration
• Restart your shell
• Check that the remote helper is available in your path by running:

$ which git-remote-rad
<home path>/.radicle/bin/git-remote-rad

With the remote helper installed, you will be able to push changes from your working copies to your Radicle monorepo or fetch changes from other peers via the rad remote. The Upstream client then publishes these changes to the network.

To start using Radicle, continue on to the Using Radicle section.