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Install Heartwood

Choose one installation route for the environment where your project files already reside. Containers are the easiest workstation route because they package Heartwood, the browser interface, and managed inference software without adding those dependencies to the host. The native installer is intended for compatible Linux hosts and research systems such as Stanford Carina when containers are not the normal execution mechanism.

Choose an Installation

Situation Use What You Install
You have Docker Desktop or Docker Engine Container One versioned Heartwood image
You use Terra Terra image A versioned image selected in Terra
You use Stanford Carina Native release installer A release-scoped installation in project storage
You use Linux without Docker Generic native installer A release-scoped installation using uv
You contribute to Heartwood Development installation The repository and locked development dependencies
You operate another platform Platform integration A platform-specific image or native installation

Heartwood images and installers contain no provider credentials and no model weights.

Confirm the Installation

After installing, run:

heartwood --version
heartwood doctor

The first command prints the installed release. The second inspects the current directory and environment without changing either one.

Development Installation

Use this route only when changing Heartwood itself. It requires Git, uv, and Node.js for browser-interface work.

git clone https://github.com/SchmiedmayerLab/heartwood.git
cd heartwood
uv sync --locked --all-groups --all-extras
uv run heartwood --version

The project uses the locked workspace rather than installing packages individually. See the Development Guide for tests and repository structure.

Update or Remove Heartwood

Container users select a new versioned image tag and remove old images with their normal Docker maintenance process. Native release installations are version-scoped, so install the new release beside the previous one, verify it, and then update the executable path.

Do not copy .heartwood/ into an installation directory. That folder belongs to each research project and persists independently of the executable.