uv Way (recommended)

This is the recommended way to install and run CAFE. It sets CAFE up as a global command, so you can open a terminal anywhere and just type:

cafe

The app opens in your web browser automatically. No need to cd into a folder or activate an environment first.

We use uv for this route because it also installs the correct Python 3.12 for you — so this works even if you don’t have Python installed.

1. Install uv

# macOS / Linux
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Windows (PowerShell)
powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

Close and reopen your terminal afterwards so the uv command is found.

2. Install CAFE from GitHub

CAFE is not published on PyPI, so you always install it straight from the GitHub repository. uv fetches the right Python automatically during install:

uv tool install "git+https://github.com/mhbsiam/cafe"

Then launch it from any directory:

cafe

This automatically opens CAFE in your web browser. The initial setup may take longer on your first launch.

To update later, reinstall from the same URL to pull the newest version:

uv tool install --force "git+https://github.com/mhbsiam/cafe"

The installed package is named cafe-app. To remove it:

uv tool uninstall cafe-app

Prefer pipx?

If you already use pipx and have Python 3.12 installed, the same commands work with pipx install / pipx uninstall in place of uv tool install / uv tool uninstall.

Other commands

Installing CAFE also provides an extra command:

• cafe-hpc — the command-line HPC pipeline (see the HPC docs for options).