Prerequisites

macOS

LLVM

There is already a version of LLVM preinstalled but it does not contain LLVM development tools (such as opt). For this reason, we only add the missing tools to the path to avoid conflicts. (Alternatively, <llvm-path>/bin can be added to the path, but this will shadow the preinstalled LLVM tools.)

brew

$ brew install llvm
$ sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/opt /usr/local/bin/opt
$ sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/llc /usr/local/bin/llc
$ sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/llvm-config /usr/local/bin/llvm-config

Build from source

$ git clone https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project.git
$ cd llvm-project
$ cmake -S llvm -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DLLVM_PARALLEL_LINK_JOBS=1 -DLLVM_ENABLE_PROJECTS="clang"
$ ninja -C build
$ sudo ln -s /<path>/llvm-project/build/bin/opt /usr/local/bin/opt
$ sudo ln -s /<path>/llvm-project/build/bin/llc /usr/local/bin/llc
$ sudo ln -s /<path>/llvm-project/build/bin/llvm-config /usr/local/bin/llvm-config

Refer to the GettingStarted guide for more information.

Boost

$ brew install boost

LibreSSL or OpenSSL

$ brew install libressl

or:

$ brew install openssl

Ghidra

$ wget https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra/releases/download/Ghidra_11.3.2_build/ghidra_11.3.2_PUBLIC_20250415.zip

Alternatively, Ghidra can be built and installed from source.

VS Code

$ brew install --cask visual-studio-code

Press Cmd + Shift + P and run the C/C++: Edit Configurations (JSON) command which will create the .vscode/c_cpp_properties.json file. Add the following include paths:

{
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Mac",
            "includePath": [
                "${workspaceFolder}/**",
                "/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/include",
                "/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/include/llvm",
                "/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/include/llvm/IR",
                "/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/include/llvm/Passes",
                "/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/include/llvm/Support",
                "/opt/homebrew/include"
            ],
            "defines": [],
            "compilerPath": "/usr/bin/clang",
            "cStandard": "c17",
            "cppStandard": "c++17",
            "intelliSenseMode": "macos-clang-arm64"
        }
    ],
    "version": 4
}