Installation

⚠️ This guide is for contributors and package developers.
If you only consume the npm package, head to the Quickstart instead.

Follow these steps to install and verify the Simple RPC AI Backend locally from the repository.

Prerequisites

  • Node.js 22.0.0 or newer (tRPC compatibility)
  • pnpm 7.0.0 or newer (Corepack recommended)
  • Python 3.8+ when building optional native modules

Clone the Repository 

git clone https://github.com/AWolf81/simple-rpc-ai-backend.git
cd simple-rpc-ai-backend

Standard Installation 

corepack enable
pnpm install
pnpm build

The install script pulls model registry data and compiles the TypeScript server output in dist/.

Install Example Dependencies

The examples/* directories depend on the workspace copy of simple-rpc-ai-backend via a relative file:../../ reference. After installing the root workspace, run pnpm install (or npm install) inside each example you intend to try. Skipping this step will surface runtime errors such as Error [ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND]: Cannot find package 'simple-rpc-ai-backend' imported from .../examples/02-mcp-server/server.js.

Safe Installation Mode

If you hit native build issues (for example with bcrypt, cpu-features, or ssh2), run the safe installer which swaps in JavaScript fallbacks and ignores optional dependency failures.

pnpm run install:safe

Verify the Build 

pnpm build
node -e "const pkg = require('./package.json'); console.log('✅', pkg.name, pkg.version);"

System Notes

  • Native module failures are non-blocking for runtime features.
  • The copy-assets script ensures all JSON data files are shipped with the build output.