Install

There are three ways to get NetPrints, depending on what you want to do.

Editor

Download the archive for your platform from the latest release and unpack it — there is no installer.

Platform	Archive
Linux (x64)	NetPrints-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz
Windows (x64)	NetPrints-<version>-win-x64.zip
macOS (Apple Silicon)	NetPrints-<version>-osx-arm64.tar.gz

Each archive is self-contained (it bundles its own .NET runtime to run), but you still need the .NET 10 SDK installed to open and build a project: the editor evaluates and builds your .csproj with MSBuild, the same way dotnet build would. Just running an already-compiled graph only needs the .NET runtime the SDK includes.

Command-line tool

dotnet tool install -g NetPrints.Cli
netprints build MyApp.csproj
netprints run MyApp.csproj

netprints build compiles the graph to C# and builds the project. netprints run does the same and then runs the program. See the command-line guide for all commands and options. Requires the .NET 10 SDK for the same reason as the editor.

In a project

dotnet add package NetPrints.Sdk

Adding the NetPrints.Sdk package to a .csproj makes every *.netpc.json graph file in the project compile to a committed *.netpc.g.cs file as part of the build — see the Projects guide for the project model and what gets committed. Requires the .NET 10 SDK.

Requirements

Building or opening a NetPrints project — with the editor, the CLI, or the SDK package — needs the .NET 10 SDK specifically (10.0.100 or later; a newer major SDK is not enough). This is a constraint of Microsoft.Build.Locator, which the editor and CLI use to find and run MSBuild: it skips SDKs whose major/minor version is newer than the runtime the tool itself runs on, and the self-contained editor bundles the .NET 10 runtime. If only a newer SDK is installed, the editor and CLI report NPW001 and exit rather than silently using the wrong one.

Running a project that has already been compiled only needs the .NET runtime that the SDK includes — for example, a machine that only runs a published NetPrints app doesn't need the SDK.

Unsigned builds

Editor builds are not code-signed. Expect a platform warning the first time you run one, and expect to click through it — this is normal for an unsigned open-source build, not a sign that the archive is broken:

• Windows: SmartScreen will say the app is unrecognized. Click More info, then Run anyway.

• macOS: Gatekeeper will refuse to open the app from Finder ("cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified"). Clear the quarantine attribute from a terminal, then run the editor from there:

  xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine NetPrints-<version>-osx-arm64
  cd NetPrints-<version>-osx-arm64
  ./NetPrints.Desktop

Code signing is tracked as a follow-up (see ADR 0005).

Verifying a download

Every release includes SHA256SUMS.txt alongside the archives and packages. Verify a download against it:

sha256sum -c --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS.txt

Release artifacts also carry GitHub build provenance attestations, which prove an artifact was built by this repository's release workflow from a specific commit. The gh CLI verifies them directly:

gh attestation verify NetPrints-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz --repo danielmeza/netprints

--check-project

The desktop editor and the archives it ships in include a headless diagnostic mode, useful in scripts or to confirm a project opens cleanly without launching the UI:

NetPrints.Desktop --check-project MyApp.csproj [--run]

It evaluates the project, translates every graph, runs Roslyn analysis, and (with --run) builds and runs it, printing a summary line (analysis: 0 errors, 0 warnings, or the errors found) and exiting with a code that scripts can check:

Exit code	Meaning
0	The project opened, translated and analyzed cleanly (and ran, with --run)
1	Analysis or the build found errors — the summary line and the first error are printed
2	No project path was given
3	No usable MSBuild/.NET SDK was found (NPW001) — see Requirements
4	--run built successfully but the program exited with a non-zero code