Get Congo

Download a prebuilt binary or build from source. No package manager needed.

Download Binary

Requires Go 1.25+ to build projects. The binary itself has no dependencies.

# macOS / Linux
tar -xzf congo-*.tar.gz
mv congo /usr/local/bin/
congo version

Create a Project

congo init myapp
cd myapp
congo dev

This vendors the entire framework into your project as internal/. Your app depends on Go's standard library, a SQLite driver, and a handful of small libraries. See the guide for a full walkthrough.

Extract from an Existing Binary

If you already have Congo (or someone sent you the binary), it can reproduce itself: 

congo source ./congo-src
cd congo-src
go build -o congo .
./congo version

congo source extracts the complete source tree from inside the binary — the CLI, the framework packages, the scaffold templates, everything. You can rebuild Congo from Congo.

Build from Source

Every file that makes up Congo is available at /source. Browse, read, and copy the source directly from this website.

Requires Go 1.25+ and nothing else.

CLI Commands

congo init <name> Create a new project with vendored framework
congo new <name> Add an app to an existing project
congo dev Run development server
congo build Build for production
congo launch Deploy infrastructure from infra.json
congo connect SSH into a deployed server
congo claude Launch Claude Code with framework context
congo source Extract Congo source code from the binary

Flags for congo init

Each flag excludes a framework package. Use them to keep your project minimal.

--module <path> Go module path (default: project name)
--dir <name> App directory name (default: web)
--no-frontend Exclude React islands (frontend)
--no-assistant Exclude AI package (assistant)
--no-platform Exclude cloud deployment (platform)
--no-database Exclude ORM (database)
--application-only Only include application

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