# Get started {#get-started}

If you have experience building apps for Apple platforms, like iOS, adding code
to Tuist shouldn’t be much different. There are two differences compared to
developing apps that are worth mentioning:

- **The interactions with CLIs happen through the terminal.** The user executes
  Tuist, which performs the desired task, and then returns successfully or with
  a status code. During the execution, the user can be notified by sending
  output information to the standard output and standard error. There are no
  gestures, or graphical interactions, just the user intent.

- **There’s no runloop that keeps the process alive waiting for input**, like it
  happens in an iOS app when the app receives system or user events. CLIs run in
  its process and finishes when the work is done. Asynchronous work can be done
  using system APIs like
  [DispatchQueue](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/dispatch/dispatchqueue)
  or [structured
  concurrency](https://developer.apple.com/tutorials/app-dev-training/managing-structured-concurrency),
  but need to make sure the process is running while the asynchronous work is
  being executed. Otherwise, the process will terminate the asynchronous work.

If you don’t have any experience with Swift, we recommend [Apple’s official
book](https://docs.swift.org/swift-book/) to get familiar with the language and
the most used elements from the Foundation’s API.

## Minimum requirements {#minimum-requirements}

To contribute to Tuist, minimum requirements are:

- macOS 14.0+
- Xcode 16.3+

## Set up the project locally {#set-up-the-project-locally}

To start working on the project, we can follow the steps below:

- Clone the repository by running: `git clone git@github.com:tuist/tuist.git`
- [Install](https://mise.jdx.dev/getting-started.html) Mise to provision the
  development environment.
- Run `mise install` to install the system dependencies needed by Tuist
- Run `tuist install` to install the external dependencies needed by Tuist
- (Optional) Run `tuist auth login` to get access to the
  <LocalizedLink href="/guides/features/cache">Tuist Cache</LocalizedLink>
- Run `tuist generate` to generate the Tuist Xcode project using Tuist itself

**The generated project opens automatically**. If you need to open again without
generating it, run `open Tuist.xcworkspace` (or use Finder).

::: info XED .
<!-- -->
If you try to open the project using `xed .`, it will open the package, and not
the project generated by Tuist. We recommend using the Tuist-generated project
to dog-food the tool.
<!-- -->
:::

## Edit the project {#edit-the-project}

If you needed to edit the project, for example to add dependencies or adjust
targets, you can use the
<LocalizedLink href="/guides/features/projects/editing">`tuist edit` command</LocalizedLink>. This is barely used, but it's good to know that it
exists.

## Run Tuist {#run-tuist}

### From Xcode {#from-xcode}

To run `tuist` from the generated Xcode project, edit the `tuist` scheme, and
set the arguments that you'd like to pass to the command. For example, to run
the `tuist generate` command, you can set the arguments to `generate --no-open`
to prevent the project from opening after the generation.

![An example of a scheme configuration to run the generate command with
Tuist](/images/contributors/scheme-arguments.png)

You'll also have to set the working directory to the root of the project being
generated. You can do that either by using the `--path` argument, which all the
commands accept, or configuring the working directory in the scheme as shown
below:


![An example of how to set the working directory to run
Tuist](/images/contributors/scheme-working-directory.png)

::: warning PROJECTDESCRIPTION COMPILATION
<!-- -->
The `tuist` CLI depends on the `ProjectDescription` framework's presence in the
built products directory. If `tuist` fails to run because it can't find the
`ProjectDescription` framework, build the `Tuist-Workspace` scheme first.
<!-- -->
:::

### From the terminal {#from-the-terminal}

You can run `tuist` using Tuist itself through its `run` command:

```bash
tuist run tuist generate --path /path/to/project --no-open
```

Alternatively, you can also run it through the Swift Package Manager directly:

```bash
swift build --product ProjectDescription
swift run tuist generate --path /path/to/project --no-open
```