README Quick Start fails on macOS: Node 26 incompatibility and missing tree-sitter CLI prerequisite
Nobody has claimed this yet.
Assessment
- Difficulty
- 2/5
- Estimated time
- Half a day
- Newbie friendliness
- 75/100
- Issue type
- Documentation
- Clarity
- Clearly specified
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Tech stack
- node.js, typescript
- Domain
- build-system, documentation
Research direction
Update the README Quick Start and, if appropriate, CONTRIBUTING.md; use package.json and packages/parser-tree-sitter's prebuild/build scripts to confirm the Node version and tree-sitter CLI requirements. Reproduce the documented macOS setup with Node 22 and the CLI, then run pnpm install and pnpm build. Done means a fresh Apple Silicon setup has complete prerequisite instructions and reaches a successful build.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
Summary
Following the README's Quick Start on macOS (Apple Silicon, fresh Homebrew toolchain), both pnpm install and pnpm build fail out of the box. Two prerequisites are not documented.
Environment
- macOS (Apple Silicon), Darwin 25.4.0
- Homebrew-installed Node and pnpm
- Repo at
main(commit4670b96)
Issue 1 — Node version ceiling not stated
The README says "Node.js >= 20", but tree-sitter@0.25.0's native binding fails to compile against Node 26's V8 headers. Homebrew's default node formula is currently 26.0.0, so anyone running brew install node lands on a broken version.
Representative error from pnpm install:
.../node_modules/tree-sitter install: /Users/.../node-gyp/26.0.0/include/node/v8-internal.h:1604:19:
error: non-static data member 'is_convertible_v' cannot be declared as a template
.../node_modules/tree-sitter install: error: 'is_convertible_v' cannot be specialized:
Users are not allowed to specialize this standard library entity
.../node_modules/tree-sitter install: 3 warnings and 20 errors generated.
.../node_modules/tree-sitter install: make: *** [Release/obj.target/tree_sitter_runtime_binding/src/binding.o] Error 1
.../node_modules/tree-sitter install: gyp ERR! node -v v26.0.0
ELIFECYCLE Command failed with exit code 1.
The repo's package.json pins volta.node to 22.22.1, which works — so Volta users are fine, but the README's plain "Node.js >= 20" guidance points the rest of us at a broken version.
Suggestion: state an upper bound (e.g. "Node 20–22 LTS") or recommend Volta explicitly so the pinned version is honored.
Issue 2 — tree-sitter CLI is a hidden prerequisite
packages/parser-tree-sitter invokes tree-sitter generate in its prebuild and build scripts, but the CLI is not a devDependency — it has to be installed system-wide. Neither the README nor CONTRIBUTING.md mentions this. (The preinstall.cjs hints at cargo install tree-sitter-cli inside a warning branch that only fires when parser.c is missing, which it usually isn't.)
pnpm install succeeds, but pnpm build fails:
@agentscript/parser-tree-sitter:build: > tree-sitter generate
@agentscript/parser-tree-sitter:build: sh: tree-sitter: command not found
ELIFECYCLE Command failed with exit code 1.
On macOS, the fix is brew install tree-sitter-cli. Worth noting that brew install tree-sitter installs only the library — the formulas were recently split, so following an obvious-looking guess gets you the wrong package.
Suggestion: add a Prerequisites bullet for the tree-sitter CLI with install commands per OS (brew, cargo, etc.).
Working setup on macOS
brew install node@22
brew link --overwrite --force node@22
brew install tree-sitter-cli
pnpm install
pnpm build
After this, pnpm build completes cleanly (16/16 packages) and pnpm ui:dev runs.
- Dominant language
- TypeScript
- Stars
- 267
- Forks
- 54
- Avg merge
- 48m
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 1
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
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