Prerequisites

Every platform needs:

Go 1.25 or later. Check with go version.
A C compiler, because Bellui uses cgo for the native window system and GPU code. CGO_ENABLED must not be 0.

You do not need to install a GPU library. The prebuilt WebGPU (wgpu-native) libraries ship inside per-platform Go modules (github.com/belluikit/webgpu/libs-darwin, libs-linux, libs-windows and so on) and are downloaded by go build like any other dependency.

Install the Xcode command line tools, which include clang:

xcode-select --install

Rendering uses Metal, which every supported Mac has.

Install a MinGW-w64 C toolchain and put its bin directory on your PATH. Either of these works:

MSYS2, then pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-gcc in the UCRT64 shell;
llvm-mingw, which is also the toolchain to use on Windows on Arm.

Check that Go finds it: go env CC should name the compiler, and gcc --version (or clang --version) should run.

Rendering uses Direct3D 12.

The first build on Windows compiles a lot of C and can take several minutes. Later builds reuse Go’s build cache and are fast.

Install a C compiler and the X11, Wayland and OpenGL development headers. On Debian and Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install gcc libgl1-mesa-dev libwayland-dev libx11-dev \
    libxkbcommon-dev xorg-dev

To run apps with the default WebGPU renderer you also need a Vulkan driver. A desktop with a working GPU driver normally has one; on a minimal system or a VM, install the Vulkan loader and Mesa’s drivers (which include the lavapipe software renderer):

sudo apt-get install libvulkan1 mesa-vulkan-drivers

Other distributions need the same pieces under their own package names: a C compiler, the X11 (including Xcursor, Xrandr, Xinerama, Xi and Xxf86vm), Wayland, xkbcommon and OpenGL development packages, and a Vulkan driver.

Optional packages

x/mmedia plays audio through ALSA on Linux and needs libasound2-dev (Debian/Ubuntu) to build.
The bellui command packages, installs and releases apps, including for Android and iOS. Install it with:
```
go install github.com/belluikit/bellui/cmd/bellui@latest
```
See Packaging and distribution for what each platform needs.

When the tools are in place, write your first app.

Your first app