This page covers Codewhale on HarmonyOS PC and OpenHarmony cross-build setups.
HarmonyOS PC can use the normal Linux ARM64 package when its userspace is glibc-compatible:
npm i -g codewhale
codewhale --versionYou can also download codewhale-linux-arm64 and
codewhale-tui-linux-arm64 from the GitHub Releases page and place both
binaries on PATH.
The repository does not check in machine-specific SDK paths. Set
OHOS_NATIVE_SDK to the OpenHarmony native SDK directory, the directory that
contains llvm/bin, sysroot, and build/cmake/ohos.toolchain.cmake.
On Windows PowerShell:
$env:OHOS_NATIVE_SDK="<path-to-openharmony-native-sdk>"
. .\scripts\ohos-env.ps1
rustup target add aarch64-unknown-linux-ohos
cargo build --target aarch64-unknown-linux-ohos -p codewhale-cliOn Linux or macOS:
export OHOS_NATIVE_SDK=/path/to/openharmony/native
. ./scripts/ohos-env.sh
rustup target add aarch64-unknown-linux-ohos
cargo build --target aarch64-unknown-linux-ohos -p codewhale-cliThe setup scripts export Cargo's target-specific linker, AR, CC, CXX,
CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS, CARGO_ENCODED_RUSTFLAGS, CC_SHELL_ESCAPED_FLAGS, and
CMake toolchain variables for aarch64-unknown-linux-ohos. They also point
bindgen at the SDK's libclang and sysroot so rquickjs-sys can generate
the OpenHarmony bindings that it does not ship pre-generated.
On Windows, ohos-env.ps1 points Cargo at the repository's
ohos-clang.cmd launcher. The launcher delegates to ohos-clang.ps1, so the
final Rust link—not only C/C++ compilation and bindgen—always carries
-target aarch64-linux-ohos, the SDK sysroot, and -D__MUSL__ while preserving
Cargo's linker arguments and exit status.
For ad-hoc compiler calls, use the wrappers in scripts/ohos/. They read the same
OHOS_NATIVE_SDK variable and do not contain local paths.
Windows PowerShell:
.\scripts\ohos\ohos-clang.ps1 --version
.\scripts\ohos\ohos-clangxx.ps1 --versionLinux or macOS:
sh ./scripts/ohos/ohos-clang.sh --version
sh ./scripts/ohos/ohos-clangxx.sh --versionIf you want to run the POSIX wrappers directly as ./scripts/ohos/ohos-clang.sh, make them
executable first:
chmod +x ./scripts/ohos/ohos-clang.sh ./scripts/ohos/ohos-clangxx.shThe repository does not check in a Cargo linker path or CMake toolchain path.
Cargo cannot expand environment variables inside linker or CMake toolchain
path values, so those values are exported by scripts/ohos-env.ps1 and
scripts/ohos-env.sh instead.
Release prep runs a no-SDK dependency check:
./scripts/release/check-ohos-deps.shThe guard asserts the Windows final-link wrapper contract, proves that OHOS
activates the rquickjs-sys bindgen feature, resolves the codewhale-tui
dependency graph for aarch64-unknown-linux-ohos, and fails if unsupported
host/UI crates re-enter that graph: nix 0.28/0.29, portable-pty, starlark,
arboard, or keyring. This no-SDK check does not replace a real SDK/sysroot
build, but it catches the known linker, bindgen, starlark -> rustyline -> nix,
and PTY/keyring regressions before release.
Because portable-pty is intentionally absent from the OpenHarmony graph, the
persistent terminal/* PTY tools are not registered on that target. The
ordinary exec_shell tools remain available through their non-PTY process
implementation.