Episode 2 — Installing the engine
In Episode 1 we covered the mental model: one content tree, six types, and the
hard line between status and visibility. Now let's get the tooling onto
your machine. The piece you install is the silan CLI — your single entry
point to the whole engine.
The two ways in
There are two paths, depending on who you are.
If you just want to use it, there's a one-line installer:
curl -fsSL https://<your-install-host>/install.sh | sh
That fetches a prebuilt silan binary, drops it on your PATH, and you're
done. (Always read a curl | sh script before you run it — this one is short
and does exactly what it says.)
If you're working on the engine itself, build from source. The engine is a
set of Rust crates under engine/:
git clone <repo-url>
cd Silan-Personal-Website/engine
cargo build --release
The dev install script wires that release binary up for you so silan on your
PATH always points at your latest local build.
Confirming it landed
One check:
silan --version
If that prints a version, the CLI is installed. If your shell can't find
silan, the binary isn't on your PATH — open a fresh terminal, or add the
install directory to PATH yourself.
Pointing it at a workspace
The CLI is useless without a content workspace to act on — that's the
content/ tree from Episode 1. A workspace is just a directory with the right
shape: a SCHEMA.md contract at the top and a resources/ folder underneath.
If you're using this very repository, the workspace already exists at
content/. Run any silan command from the repo root and it finds it.
To check the engine can see and understand your workspace:
silan status
This scans the tree, validates every item against the schema, and reports
what it found — counts per type, plus any validation errors. A clean status
means the engine and your content agree. That's the green light.
When you're stuck: silan guide
The CLI ships with a command built exactly for the "okay, now what?" moment:
silan guide
guide looks at the current state of your workspace and gives you
stage-aware hints — concrete next steps for wherever you happen to be. New
empty workspace? It tells you to create your first item. Unsynced changes? It
points you at sync. Treat it as a co-pilot you can summon any time you lose
the thread.
Cleaning up
If you ever want silan-viking gone, it removes its own footprint:
silan uninstall
That deletes the binary and install artifacts. Your content/ tree is not
touched — your writing is yours, and the engine never assumes otherwise.
CLI installed, workspace recognized, status green. Next episode we stop
configuring and start writing — a real content item, frontmatter and all.