Installation

Rust Library

Add HeliosDB Nano to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
heliosdb-nano = "4"

Or via cargo:

cargo add heliosdb-nano

CLI Tool

Install the command-line interface:

cargo install heliosdb-nano --locked

Prebuilt Binaries

Self-contained binaries for Linux (x86_64 / aarch64), macOS (arm64) and Windows (x86_64), each with SHA256SUMS, are attached to every GitHub Release:

# Latest release tag (pin a specific tag in production)
VER=$(curl -sSf https://api.github.com/repos/HeliosDatabase/HeliosDB-Nano/releases/latest | sed -n 's/.*"tag_name": *"\([^"]*\)".*/\1/p')
curl -sSfL -O "https://github.com/HeliosDatabase/HeliosDB-Nano/releases/download/$VER/heliosdb-nano-$VER-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz"
tar xzf "heliosdb-nano-$VER-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz"
./heliosdb-nano --version

The binaries need glibc 2.39 or newer (Debian 13, Ubuntu 24.04, Fedora 40, RHEL 10). On older systems use the container image below or build from source. curl -fsSL https://install.heliosdb.com | sh does the download, checksum check and install for you.

Docker

The official multi-arch image (linux/amd64, linux/arm64) is published to GitHub Container Registry with every release:

docker run -d --name heliosdb -p 5432:5432 \
  -e HELIOSDB_PASSWORD=change-me \
  -v heliosdb_data:/data \
  ghcr.io/heliosdatabase/heliosdb-nano:latest   # pin a release tag in production

psql "postgresql://postgres:change-me@localhost:5432/postgres?sslmode=require" -c 'SELECT 1'

HELIOSDB_PASSWORD (or HELIOSDB_PASSWORD_FILE) is required: trust auth is refused on the container’s 0.0.0.0 listener. A self-signed TLS certificate is generated in /data/tls on first start. See Production Deployment for TLS, secrets and Kubernetes.

Python (embedded binding)

pip install heliosdb-nano-embedded

import heliosdb_nano

The PyPI package is released separately from the engine and currently lags behind it. To use the current engine from Python, run heliosdb-nano start and connect over the PostgreSQL wire protocol (e.g. psycopg2).

Other Languages

There is no npm or Go package for Nano. From Node.js, Go, Java, .NET and others, connect with any PostgreSQL or MySQL driver to a running heliosdb-nano start server, or use the REST API. Client SDKs (Python, TypeScript, Go, Rust) are maintained as source in HeliosDB-SDKs and are not published to package registries.

Building from Source

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/HeliosDatabase/HeliosDB-Nano.git
cd HeliosDB-Nano

# Build release (requires Rust 1.85+)
cargo build --release --locked

# Run tests
cargo test

Platform Support

Platform	Architecture	Result
Linux	x86_64, aarch64	Fully supported
macOS	Apple Silicon	Prebuilt binary; x86_64 from source
Windows	x86_64	Prebuilt binary

Prebuilt Linux binaries require glibc 2.39 or newer; on older distributions build from source.

Feature Flags

Enable optional features in Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
heliosdb-nano = { version = "4", features = ["encryption", "simd"] }

Feature	Description
`encryption`	Enable AES-256-GCM encryption at rest
`simd`	Enable SIMD acceleration for vector operations
`server`	Enable PostgreSQL wire protocol server
`vector-search`	HNSW vector indexing (default)
`mcp-endpoint`	Built-in MCP endpoint for AI agents
`ha-tier1`	Warm-standby / streaming replication (default)

Verifying Installation

# Check version
heliosdb-nano --version

# Run quick test
heliosdb-nano repl --memory
> SELECT 1 + 1;

Next Steps

Quick Start Guide - Create your first database
Deployment Modes - Choose how to deploy