Sharpee
Chord / Getting Started / Install

Install

Chord is a language for writing parser-based interactive fiction. You describe the world (rooms, things, people, and how they behave), and the Sharpee platform runs it: in the terminal, in the browser, or under a transcript test runner.

Everything you need arrives with one command-line tool.

What you need

  • Node.js 18 or newer. Check with node --version.

Install the CLI

npm install -g @sharpee/devkit

This installs the sharpee command. Run it bare to see what it can do:

sharpee — Interactive Fiction authoring CLI

Usage:
  sharpee build [<file>.story | dir]     Build a Chord story to a browser app (browser is the default client)
  sharpee build [name|path] [--browser]  Build a TypeScript story project
  sharpee init <name>                    Scaffold a new story project
  sharpee compose <file.story> [opts]    Compile a Chord story to Story IR
  sharpee test [name|path] [transcripts…] [--chain] [--stop-on-failure] [--verbose]
                                         Run the project's transcript tests
  sharpee play [name|path]               Play the project interactively (REPL)

(The full listing has a few more commands: register, list, ifid, and the browser-client helpers. You will meet the ones you need as you go.)

Next

With the CLI installed, scaffold your first story: one command creates a small, playable project.