Tauri v2 Prerequisites — OS-by-OS

Tauri needs three layers of dependencies: system libs (webview + linker), Rust toolchain (stable, MSVC on Windows), and optional mobile SDKs (Android Studio + NDK, Xcode + Cocoapods). Get all three before cargo tauri dev.

Run templates/check-prereqs.sh first — it probes for everything below and prints a single PASS/FAIL summary.

Linux

Debian / Ubuntu (incl. 22.04, 24.04)

sudo apt update
sudo apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev \
  build-essential curl wget file \
  libxdo-dev libssl-dev \
  libayatana-appindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev

24.04 gotcha: libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev no longer exists. Tauri v2 already targets 4.1, so the line above is correct. If you see E: Unable to locate package libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev you copy-pasted a v1 guide.

Arch / Manjaro

sudo pacman -Syu
sudo pacman -S --needed webkit2gtk-4.1 base-devel curl wget file openssl \
  appmenu-gtk-module libappindicator-gtk3 librsvg xdotool

Fedora / RHEL / Rocky

sudo dnf check-update
sudo dnf install webkit2gtk4.1-devel openssl-devel curl wget file \
  libappindicator-gtk3-devel librsvg2-devel libxdo-devel
sudo dnf group install "c-development"

openSUSE

sudo zypper up
sudo zypper in webkit2gtk3-devel libopenssl-devel curl wget file \
  libappindicator3-1 librsvg-devel
sudo zypper in -t pattern devel_basis

Alpine

sudo apk add build-base webkit2gtk-4.1-dev curl wget file openssl \
  libayatana-appindicator-dev librsvg font-dejavu

Alpine containers ship with no fonts — font-dejavu (or any font package) is required or text renders as boxes.

NixOS

Use the flake from https://wiki.nixos.org/wiki/Tauri. Do not apt/dnf equivalents — Nix manages the linker rpath separately and a raw cargo build will fail to find libwebkit2gtk.

macOS (Catalina 10.15+)

Desktop only:

xcode-select --install
xcode-select -p   # should print /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools or /Applications/Xcode.app/...

iOS or universal builds: install full Xcode from the App Store, then:

sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
sudo xcodebuild -license accept
xcodebuild -runFirstLaunch

Broken CLT recovery (symptom: xcrun: error: invalid active developer path):

sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools
xcode-select --install

Windows 10 / 11

1. MSVC Build Tools — install Build Tools for Visual Studio, check “Desktop development with C++”. The MSVC linker (link.exe) and Windows SDK are required; MinGW will not work.

2. WebView2 — preinstalled on Windows 10 1803+ and Windows 11. Verify:

   Get-AppxPackage -Name "Microsoft.WebView2Runtime" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
   # or check registry: HKLM:\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate\Clients\{F3017226-FE2A-4295-8BDF-00C3A9A7E4C5}
   reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate\Clients\{F3017226-FE2A-4295-8BDF-00C3A9A7E4C5}" /v pv

   If missing (Windows Server, stripped LTSC, Windows Sandbox), download the Evergreen Bootstrapper from https://developer.microsoft.com/microsoft-edge/webview2/.

3. Rust MSVC toolchain:

   winget install --id Rustlang.Rustup
   rustup default stable-msvc

   If cargo build errors with error: linkerlink.exenot found, you installed the GNU toolchain — switch with rustup default stable-msvc.

4. VBSCRIPT (only for MSI bundles): Settings → Apps → Optional features → More Windows features → enable VBSCRIPT. Symptom of missing it: failed to run light.exe during tauri build.

Windows Server / Sandbox

Both ship without WebView2 and frequently without the Visual C++ runtime. Install the Evergreen Bootstrapper, then vc_redist.x64.exe from Microsoft.

Rust (all OSes)

# Linux/macOS
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh
rustc --version   # 1.77+ recommended for Tauri 2.0

# Windows (PowerShell)
winget install --id Rustlang.Rustup
rustup default stable-msvc

Restart your terminal after install. On Windows, sometimes a full logout is needed for PATH to pick up ~/.cargo/bin.

Node.js (optional, for JS frontends)

LTS only. Tauri itself does not need Node, but every JS framework does. Use corepack enable to get pnpm/yarn without separate installs.

node -v   # v20.10.0 or newer
npm -v

Mobile targets

Android

# Linux
export JAVA_HOME=/opt/android-studio/jbr
# macOS
export JAVA_HOME="/Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents/jbr/Contents/Home"
# Windows (PowerShell, User scope)
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("JAVA_HOME","C:\Program Files\Android\Android Studio\jbr","User")

Then in Android Studio’s SDK Manager install: Android SDK Platform, Platform-Tools, NDK (Side by side), Build-Tools, Command-line Tools.

# Linux
export ANDROID_HOME="$HOME/Android/Sdk"
# macOS
export ANDROID_HOME="$HOME/Library/Android/sdk"
export NDK_HOME="$ANDROID_HOME/ndk/$(ls -1 $ANDROID_HOME/ndk | tail -1)"

rustup target add aarch64-linux-android armv7-linux-androideabi i686-linux-android x86_64-linux-android

iOS (macOS only)

rustup target add aarch64-apple-ios x86_64-apple-ios aarch64-apple-ios-sim
brew install cocoapods

If pod install (run by tauri ios init) hangs: pod repo update once, then retry. Cocoapods on M-series Macs sometimes needs arch -arm64 pod install.

Common Failures Cheat Sheet

Symptom	Cause	Fix
libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev not found (Ubuntu 24.04)	following v1 guide	install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev
linkerlink.exenot found (Windows)	GNU toolchain installed	rustup default stable-msvc
xcrun: error: invalid active developer path	CLT removed/broken	sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools && xcode-select --install
failed to run light.exe (MSI build)	VBSCRIPT disabled	enable in Optional Features
Blank window on Linux, no errors	missing librsvg/icons	reinstall system deps line above
Text shows as squares (Alpine container)	no fonts	apk add font-dejavu
Android NDK_HOME not picked up	env var set in current shell only	export from ~/.zshrc/~/.bashrc and restart
Tauri build complains about missing pkg-config	not in build-essential/base-devel on some minimal images	install pkg-config explicitly

Verifying everything

Run templates/check-prereqs.sh (Linux/macOS) — it prints PASS/MISSING per dependency and exits non-zero on the first missing required item. Re-run after each install step.

On Windows, the equivalent one-liner:

rustc --version; cargo --version; node -v; reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate\Clients\{F3017226-FE2A-4295-8BDF-00C3A9A7E4C5}" /v pv 2>$null

Any line that errors → install that piece.