Installation

Install aardvark via Homebrew or a prebuilt release binary. Node is required at build time to bundle the Mantine islands.

Prerequisites

The vark binary is self-contained — it ships its own Python runtime, so there’s nothing else to install. Node is only needed to build the islands JS. You can skip it with vark build --no-bundle (components then render as inert placeholders).

Install with Homebrew (macOS)

The quickest way on a Mac — installs a self-contained binary, no Python required:

brew tap aardvarkdocs/tap
brew install aardvark
vark --version

The Homebrew package is named aardvark (after the project), but it installs the CLI as vark — shorter to type. (aardvark is also installed as an alias, so either name works.) The one-time brew tap registers the formula repository; after that brew install aardvark / brew upgrade aardvark work like any Homebrew package. If you’d rather not tap, the single-command equivalent is brew install aardvarkdocs/tap/aardvark.

Upgrade later with brew update && brew upgrade aardvark. Interactive Mantine islands still need Node at build time (brew install node); without it, build with vark build --no-bundle.

Windows

Download the prebuilt Windows binary from the latest release:

The binary is unsigned, so the first launch may show a SmartScreen warning (“Windows protected your PC”) — click More info → Run anyway. As on every platform, Node.js is only needed at site-build time for interactive islands; vark build --no-bundle works without it.

Linux

Download the matching tarball from the same release page (aardvark-<version>-linux-x86_64.tar.gz or …-linux-aarch64.tar.gz):

curl -fsSL https://github.com/aardvarkdocs/homebrew-tap/releases/download/v<version>/aardvark-<version>-linux-x86_64.tar.gz \
  | tar xz && sudo mv vark /usr/local/bin/
vark --version

The prebuilt binary is glibc-linked (not musl/Alpine). Release tarballs target glibc ≥ 2.39 (Ubuntu 24.04 class and newer distros). Node.js is only needed at site-build time for interactive islands.

The binary bundles the default theme and the islands runtime, so it works out of the box. Node is still required on the build machine to bundle interactive islands — see Deployment for details.

AI features

aardvark’s AI features are built into the binary — there’s nothing extra to install. Turn them on in aardvark.config.yaml (the ai: block) and provide a key. See AI features for the overview, Build-time AI for the build-time enrichment options, and Cloud gateway for the hosted reader assistant.