Installing Clojure locally

Learn how to install Clojure locally to solve Exercism's exercises on your own machine

Installing the Clojure CLI

Clojure provides command line tools that can be used to start a Clojure repl, use Clojure and Java libraries, and start Clojure programs.

If you need to install Java, we recommend Adoptium Temurin 17.

Linux

Ensure that the following dependencies are installed: bash, curl, rlwrap, and Java. You can install Clojure either of these 2 ways:

  1. LinuxBrew - requires Homebrew 
brew install clojure/tools/clojure
  1. Script installer
curl -O https://download.clojure.org/install/linux-install-1.11.1.1347.sh
chmod +x linux-install-1.11.1.1347.sh
sudo ./linux-install-1.11.1.1347.sh

Homebrew for Mac OS X

Install the command line tools with brew from the clojure/tools tap:

brew install clojure/tools/clojure

Java

Any distribution of Java will work. If needed, you can install Temurin using brew:

brew tap homebrew/cask-versions
brew install --cask temurin17

Windows

Clojure on Windows has improved significantly recently. We used to recommended using WSL2, which works great, but there is now a PowerShell installer. Clojure on Windows is currently in an alpha state, see clj-on-windows for known issues.

Make sure Java is installed and the JAVA_HOME environment variable is set, and run:

iwr -useb download.clojure.org/install/win-install-1.11.1.1165.ps1 | iex

Another way to install Clojure on Windows is with the Scoop package manager. To install scoop, open PowerShell and run these 2 commands, one after the other:

iwr -useb get.scoop.sh | iex
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser -Force

To install Clojure with Scoop you have to add two important buckets first:

# if you don't have git version control system installed
# it is required for adding new external buckets to your scoop installer
# you can skip this step otherwise
scoop install git

# add scoop bucket for Java 
scoop bucket add java

# add scoop bucket for clojure build
scoop bucket add scoop-clojure https://github.com/littleli/scoop-clojure

Now we are ready to install Java and Clojure by issuing following commands:

# install Java runtime and compiler
scoop install adoptopenjdk-lts-hotspot

# install official clojure tools
scoop install clojure

# update to the newest version
scoop update clojure

After successfully running steps above, you should be able to run Clojure with the following:

clj

Install Leiningen (optional)

While no longer necessary, we still support the full featured project management tool Leiningen. It offers a wide variety of helpful tasks like convenient testing, builds, and an improved REPL.

  1. Download the lein script or lein.bat (Windows)
  2. Place it on your $PATH where your shell can find it (eg. /usr/local/bin/)
  3. Set it to be executable (sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/lein)
  4. Run lein.

Editor integration

The best way to develop Clojure is with an editor-connected REPL. Plugins are available for the most popular editors/IDEs:

See the official docs for more info.