Installation

Cargo (Rust)

cargo install scythe-cli

cargo-binstall is also supported and downloads the prebuilt binary instead of compiling from source:

cargo binstall scythe-cli

npm (Node.js)

For Node.js projects, install scythe as a pinned dev dependency – no Rust toolchain required. A postinstall step downloads the prebuilt binary matching your platform and verifies its checksum.

npm install --save-dev scythe-cli
npx scythe --version

Supports Linux (x64/arm64, glibc only), macOS (x64/arm64), and Windows (x64, with x64 emulation on ARM64). See the scythe-cli README for supported environment variables (proxy configuration, SCYTHE_BINARY, SCYTHE_CACHE_DIR).

pip (Python)

pip install scythe-sql
scythe --version

pip install does not run code for a wheel install, so the binary is downloaded (and its checksum verified) on first invocation of scythe, then cached and reused. In a Dockerfile, warm the cache at build time with pip install scythe-sql && scythe --version. See the scythe-sql README for supported environment variables.

Homebrew (macOS/Linux)

brew install Goldziher/tap/scythe

Pre-built binaries are available for macOS (arm64, x86_64) and Linux (x86_64, arm64). No Rust toolchain needed.

From Source

git clone https://github.com/Goldziher/scythe.git
cd scythe
cargo install --path crates/scythe-cli

GitHub Actions

Use the moving v0 action to install the latest scythe release, verify its checksum, and add it to PATH:

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v4
  - name: Install scythe
    id: scythe
    uses: Goldziher/scythe@v0
  - run: scythe --version

v0 tracks the latest compatible action implementation. By default, the action resolves the latest scythe GitHub release using github.token and caches the installed binary by version, operating system, and runner architecture. Pin the CLI version independently when reproducibility matters:

- name: Install scythe 0.18.1 without caching
  id: scythe
  uses: Goldziher/scythe@v0
  with:
    version: 0.18.1
    cache: false
- run: scythe check

The version input accepts 0.18.1 or v0.18.1; omit it or pass latest to resolve the latest release. Set github-token only when the default workflow token cannot read release metadata.

Every download is checked against the release’s SHA-256 checksum file before installation. The action supports native x64 and ARM64 Linux and macOS runners. Windows x64 and ARM64 runners install the x64 Windows binary; Windows ARM64 therefore requires x64 emulation.

The step exposes these outputs:

Output	Value
version	Installed version without the v prefix
target	Installed Rust target triple
install-dir	Directory added to PATH

Reference them through the step id, for example ${{ steps.scythe.outputs.version }}.

Pre-commit / prek

If you only need scythe for pre-commit hooks, add it directly to your .pre-commit-config.yaml:

repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/Goldziher/scythe
    rev: v0.18.1
    hooks:
      - id: scythe-fmt
      - id: scythe-lint

See Pre-commit Hooks for all available hooks and configuration.

Verify Installation

scythe --version