Install¶

Pick one route. They install the same program; every command after this page is identical. If you are new, the getting started tutorial uses this page and then goes on to a first note.

Route	Command
Homebrew (macOS)	`brew install rubenamaury/esbi-cli/esbi-cli`
`uv` (from PyPI)	`uv tool install esbi-cli`
`uv` from git (unreleased code)	`uv tool install git+https://github.com/RubenAmaury/esbi-cli`
A built wheel	`uv tool install esbi_cli-0.4.1-py3-none-any.whl`
From a source checkout	`uv tool install --editable .`
Other systems	Not supported

You need Python 3.12 or later, which Homebrew and uv install for you, and git if you want version history (optional). On macOS that means macOS 13 or later: PDFs are read with PDFium, whose prebuilt packages need it. The whole PDF part of the install is about 8 MB, 214 MB less than the PDF stack it replaced, which no longer exists. On macOS 12 or older the install stops with no matching distribution found for pypdfium2: see Troubleshooting.

Homebrew (macOS)¶

brew install rubenamaury/esbi-cli/esbi-cli

This adds the project's tap, installs Python 3.13 and sb. Check it:

sb version

The caveats Homebrew prints at the end tell you the next commands: sb init, sb doctor, sb schedule install, and brew install ollama for local models.

`uv`¶

uv installs command-line tools into their own environments. If you do not have it:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Open a new terminal, then:

uv tool install esbi-cli

It ends with:

Installed 1 executable: sb

Unreleased code from git¶

To try what is on main before it is released:

uv tool install git+https://github.com/RubenAmaury/esbi-cli

sb update and uv tool upgrade esbi-cli then follow main; to go back to releases, run uv tool install --force esbi-cli.

sb version

0.4.1

A built wheel¶

Every GitHub release has a wheel attached (esbi_cli-X.Y.Z-py3-none-any.whl; note the underscore). Download it, then:

uv tool install ~/Downloads/esbi_cli-0.4.1-py3-none-any.whl

You can build one yourself from a checkout with uv build (the wheel appears in dist/).

From a source checkout¶

For development, or to run the latest code. Changes to the code take effect at once.

git clone https://github.com/RubenAmaury/esbi-cli

Then, inside the folder:

uv tool install --editable .

If you develop with uv sync and the folder lives in an iCloud-synced location such as ~/Documents, see Troubleshooting; CONTRIBUTING covers the development setup.

Other systems (not supported)¶

macOS is the only supported platform for now. Linux and Windows (WSL included) are not supported, and nothing is promised there. sb doctor says so on any other system: WARN platform: esbi-cli is only supported on macOS for now (... it may work, nothing is promised).

For people who try anyway: Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04 were tried in containers, and the problems found there were fixed, so it may work. Install with uv tool install esbi-cli (uv fetches its own Python, which matters on 22.04, whose system Python is too old). There is no launchd: the nightly job is a cron line that sb schedule status and sb init --nightly print (Run it every night). Email capture needs a Secret Service for the password (Email where there is no keyring). WSL and native Windows were not tried at all.

If `sb` is not found¶

sb: command not found means the folder uv puts tools in is not on your PATH. uv printed a warning when it installed; the fix is:

uv tool update-shell

Then open a new terminal. sb doctor prints a WARN global install line with the same cause. Homebrew puts sb in /opt/homebrew/bin, which is on the PATH of a normal Homebrew install.

What an installed copy needs¶

Nothing from a source checkout: the starter configuration, the schema, the setup wizards and the Web Clipper templates are inside the package.

Next¶

sb init

then sb doctor. The walk-through is Getting started; the way to a model is Choose how the notes are written. To remove it, see Update and uninstall.

Updates¶

Once a day esbi-cli asks GitHub whether a newer release exists, and a command run in a terminal prints one line when there is one. Nothing installs by itself: sb update shows the command for the way you installed it and asks first. Update esbi-cli explains it, and how to turn the check off ([update] check = false).