Requirements

macOS

brew install mpv ffmpeg cmake      # cmake is for wreq's BoringSSL
rustup toolchain install 1.97.1    # pinned by rust-toolchain.toml

Linux

sudo apt install mpv ffmpeg cmake build-essential pkg-config   # Debian / Ubuntu
sudo dnf install mpv ffmpeg cmake gcc-c++                      # Fedora
sudo pacman -S mpv ffmpeg cmake base-devel                     # Arch

Windows

winget install --id Rustlang.Rustup
winget install --id Kitware.CMake
winget install --id NASM.NASM
winget install --id Gyan.FFmpeg
winget install --id shinchiro.mpv
winget install --id Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.BuildTools

NASM and the MSVC build tools are extra on Windows because the torrent stack compiles C and assembles its own crypto primitives. See installation for the full walkthrough.

• mpv does all playback, over JSON IPC.
• ffmpeg is used for remuxing and subtitle handling on downloads.
• cmake builds BoringSSL for the browser-fingerprint HTTP stack.
• Rust 1.97.1 — the toolchain is pinned by rust-toolchain.toml, so rustup will pick it up automatically inside the repo.

Optional:

• rustup target add wasm32-wasip2 — only if you want to build plugins.

Terminal

Use a terminal with a real graphics protocol if you can: Ghostty, Kitty, iTerm2, WezTerm. Cover art renders as actual images over the Kitty, Sixel or iTerm2 protocols. Elsewhere it falls back to Unicode halfblocks. On Windows that means WezTerm, since Windows Terminal supports neither protocol.

anistream --doctor

reports what your terminal supports, whether mpv runs and which config it reads, and the state of the VPN guard and your VPN’s kill switch.