Installation

slivingdoc is one native executable. There are two ways to get it: the npm launcher, which most MCP hosts can start for you, and a direct download of the release binary.

The npm launcher

The slivingdoc npm package contains no native code. It selects the binary for its own exact version and for your platform, downloads it from the matching GitHub release, verifies the published SHA-256, caches the verified bytes, and then runs the binary with your arguments:

export SLIVINGDOC_BUCKET=my-notes
npx -y slivingdoc version
npx -y slivingdoc serve

Requirement: Node.js 22 or newer, on one of the supported platforms below. An unsupported platform fails before any download, with an error that names the supported targets.

This is the form to put in an MCP host configuration. The host starts the launcher as a child process, and the launcher becomes the server:

• Arguments are forwarded to the binary as written, and standard input stays connected.
• The launcher never writes to standard output. Standard output belongs to the MCP protocol and to the binary; launcher diagnostics go to standard error.
• The binary’s exit status, or its terminating signal, becomes the launcher’s.

The cache

Downloads live under the npm cache, at a path specific to the version, the operating system, the architecture, and the asset, and they are verified again on every run. A corrupt or partial download is deleted and fetched again; it is never executed. Transient network failures are retried with exponential backoff, and a missing release asset is reported at once.

Variable	Effect
SLIVINGDOC_CACHE	Use this directory as the cache root instead of npm’s.
SLIVINGDOC_RELEASE_BASE	Fetch release assets from a mirror of the GitHub release download URLs.

Tip: A machine that must not reach GitHub at run time can be pre-warmed once, or pointed at an internal mirror with SLIVINGDOC_RELEASE_BASE. The checksum is still verified on every run.

Supported platforms

Operating system	Architectures
Linux	amd64, arm (32-bit ARMv7, Raspberry Pi OS armhf), arm64
macOS	amd64, arm64
Windows	amd64

Direct download

Every release publishes one binary per target, plus a SHA256SUMS checksum file and the third-party NOTICE. The asset name is slivingdoc-v<semver>-<os>-<arch>, with .exe added on Windows. The operating-system values are linux, darwin, and windows; the architecture values are amd64, arm, and arm64.

Download the asset for your platform from the GitHub releases page, check it against the SHA256SUMS line for that asset, make it executable, and run it in place. The binary is self-contained: it needs no libgit2, no Git executable, and no toolchain on the target machine.

Check the version

slivingdoc version

version prints slivingdoc <semver> and exits. It touches nothing else: no bucket, no network, no configuration. It is the safe first command after an install, and the one to put in a support report.

Build from source

Building the native executable yourself means building the pinned libgit2 first — the repository’s docs/build.md is the procedure, from the pinned source tarball to the dependency check. There is no pure-Go build: the Git engine needs CGo, so a build with CGo disabled fails to compile instead of producing an executable that starts and then fails every operation.

Next

• Quickstart — from nothing to a shared notebook.
• Connect an MCP host — where the launcher command goes for each host.
• Configuration — every flag, environment variable, and default.