## Creating the launch script

Pants is invoked via a launch script named `./pants` , saved at the root of the repository. This script will install Pants and handle upgrades.

First, set up a minimal `pants.toml` config file to instruct the script to download the latest 2.8 release:

Then, download the script:

Now, run this to bootstrap Pants and to verify the version it installs:

📘

Tip: add `./pants` to version control

This will allow all users in the project to use Pants without having to install it themselves.

## Running Pants from unreleased builds

To use an unreleased build of Pants from the [pantsbuild/pants](🔗) main branch, locate the main branch SHA, set PANTS_SHA=<SHA> in the environment, and run `./pants` as usual:

## Building Pants from sources

We currently distribute Pants for Linux (x86_64) and macOS.

If you need to run Pants on some other platform, such as Linux on ARM or Alpine Linux, you can try building it yourself by checking out the [Pants repo](🔗), and running `./pants package src/python/pants:pants-packaged` to build a wheel.

## Running Pants from sources

You can use a [`pants_from_sources` script like this](🔗) to run Pants from sources in another repository. This is useful when making changes directly to Pants to see how it impacts your project.