---
title: Installation
description: Install the Go toolchain, PostgreSQL and the summer CLI you need to build a SummerCMS application.
section: setup
order: 20
---
# Installation

SummerCMS is a Go module. An application requires it, lists its plugins in a `summer.yaml` manifest and builds everything into one binary with the `summer` CLI.

## Requirements

- Go 1.27.
- PostgreSQL 16 for any application that uses the data layer. The database's default locale must be the ICU `pl-PL` locale, which lagoon checks when it connects.
- Docker, only for the integration tests that start PostgreSQL or Mailpit containers.

You do not need Node.js to build an application or these docs. It is needed only when you work on the admin SPA itself.

## Install the summer CLI

Clone the framework repository, then install the `summer` tool from its root:

```sh
go install ./cmd/summer
summer --help
```

The tool builds and watches applications, scaffolds plugins, models, migrations and admin controllers, and builds this documentation. Check that the framework compiles and its unit tests pass:

```sh
go vet ./...
go test -short ./...
```

`go test -short` skips the tests that need Docker. Run `go test ./...` without `-short` when Docker is available.

## Check your install

Console commands in SummerCMS are plain `bonfire.Command` values: a name in `namespace:verb` form, its arguments and flags, and a run function that reads input and writes output. The `summer` tool and every application binary are built from such values, and `bonfire.Call` runs one in-process, which is how tests call commands. This example comes from the framework's own tests, so it compiles and runs whenever you run `go test ./...`:

```go src=modules/bonfire/example_test.go#ExampleCall
commands := []bonfire.Command{{
	Name:        "acme:greet",
	Description: "Greet someone by name",
	Args:        []bonfire.Arg{{Name: "name", Required: true}},
	Run: func(ctx context.Context, in bonfire.Input, out bonfire.Output) error {
		name, _ := in.Argument("name")
		out.Printf("Hello, %s\n", name)
		return nil
	},
}}

if err := bonfire.Call(context.Background(), commands, "acme:greet", []string{"blog"}, os.Stdout); err != nil {
	fmt.Println(err)
}
// Output: Hello, blog
```

If the tests above pass, this example ran and printed `Hello, blog`. See the [bonfire](../../modules/bonfire/README.md) reference for flags, prompts and styled output.