From a GitHub release

Every release publishes a prebuilt .tar.gz per platform plus a checksums.sha256 file - no toolchain needed. Your target hosts still need git, tar, a POSIX shell, and SSH (see Requirements).

Each release (v{VERSION}) ships these archives.

Intel macOS (darwin_amd64) isn’t prebuilt - build from source there. For any other plugin (or your own), compile a binary with whoosh build - see Need the AWS plugin? below.

Download and install

Set VERSION to the release (without the leading v) and PLATFORM to your OS/arch:

VERSION=1.0.0
PLATFORM=darwin_arm64   # or: linux_amd64 | linux_arm64

base="https://github.com/YouSysAdmin/whoosh/releases/download/v${VERSION}"
curl -fsSL -o whoosh.tar.gz "${base}/whoosh_v${VERSION}_${PLATFORM}.tar.gz"
curl -fsSL -O "${base}/checksums.sha256"

# verify the download (Linux: sha256sum - macOS: shasum -a 256)
sha256sum --ignore-missing -c checksums.sha256 2>/dev/null \
  || shasum -a 256 -c checksums.sha256 --ignore-missing

tar -xzf whoosh.tar.gz whoosh
install -m 0755 whoosh /usr/local/bin/whoosh   # or anywhere on $PATH

Need the AWS plugin?

The AWS plugin (aws:* - EC2 inventory, ASG/AMI, SSM/Secrets) is prebuilt: download the whoosh-aws_* archive for your platform (same steps as above, swapping the whoosh_ prefix for whoosh-aws_) and you get a whoosh binary with aws:* baked in - confirm with whoosh plugins (it lists aws).

For any other plugin (third-party or your own), or to combine several, compile a binary with whoosh build:

# `whoosh build` ships in every whoosh binary (go install github.com/yousysadmin/whoosh/cmd/whoosh@latest)
whoosh build --with github.com/yousysadmin/whoosh/plugins/aws -o ./whoosh

See With custom plugins for details. On an AWS-free binary, a Deployfile that references the aws plugin fails fast with unknown plugin "aws" (not built into this binary).

Container image

Multi-arch images (amd64 + arm64) are published to GitHub Container Registry:

docker pull ghcr.io/yousysadmin/whoosh:latest        # or a specific tag, e.g. :1.0.0

# mount your project (the Deployfile lives in /work) and your SSH agent:
docker run --rm -it \
  -v "$PWD:/work" \
  -v "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK:/ssh-agent" -e SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/ssh-agent \
  ghcr.io/yousysadmin/whoosh:latest production deploy

The image is Alpine-based and includes git, tar, an SSH client, and CA certificates, so it works for both remote deploys and local mode. It packages the AWS-free binary. For the aws:* features in a container, build an image FROM your own custom-built binary (see With custom plugins).

Verify

whoosh version
whoosh plugins      # which plugins are compiled in
whoosh --help