Download & Install

TZPL currently runs on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel). Cross-platform support is planned.

Packaged releases

Official releases ship as a disk image, Tzopilotl-<version>.dmg, from the GitHub releases page. Open the image and drag the Tzopilotl folder anywhere you like -- /Applications, your home directory, a projects drive. There is no installer and nothing is written outside the folder.

The folder is self-contained and relocatable:

Tzopilotl/
  Tzopilotl.app     the app: editor, notebooks, REPL, audio engine
  bin/tzpl          command-line interpreter and REPL (language only)
  modules/          the standard library (std.*, music.*, ugens, ...)
  examples/         runnable demos -- open one in the app
  docs/             the guides and reference documentation
  editors/          syntax packages for VS Code, TextMate, tree-sitter
  README.txt

The one rule: keep the folder together. Don't move Tzopilotl.app out on its own, or it will no longer find its sibling modules/ directory.

To update, replace the whole Tzopilotl/ folder with the new version. Nothing of yours is stored inside it, so this is always safe.

Requirements

• macOS. The app uses CoreAudio; no other audio drivers are needed.
• Xcode Command Line Tools. Compiling synth definitions uses the system

C++ compiler. If synthdef compilation fails with a missing-compiler error: xcode-select --install.

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/lfnoise/tzpl.git
cd tzpl
./build.sh

Requires Clang (or GCC 15+), CMake 3.21+, and a C++23 toolchain. See Getting Started for build options, the headless CLI, and environment variables.

Editor support

Syntax highlighting for Tzopilotl (.x files) is available for:

• VS Code -- lang/editors/vscode (also in the distribution's

editors/ folder)

• Zed -- lang/editors/zed-tzpl
• TextMate / Sublime Text -- lang/editors/Tzopilotl.tmbundle
• Tree-sitter grammar -- lang/editors/tree-sitter-tzpl