Installation and Creating a Project

Three entry points — pick one based on your goal. All three install the same binary. There are two command names, goxjs and gox (aliases of each other, identical usage); a source build produces gox (gox.exe on Windows).

Option 1: The gox create Scaffold (Easiest for GUI Apps)

The equivalent of npm create vite on the frontend: one command lays out a ready-to-run GUI project with the directory structure already in place, so you can just keep adding features. Requires version 0.4.0 or later.

npm i -g @goxjs/goxjs
gox create my-app      # new / init are aliases of the same subcommand
cd my-app
npm install            # only to get the goxjs command; the runtime itself has zero dependencies
npm run dev            # = goxjs src/main.js

Generated output (the default, pinned by tests):

.
├── package.json          # metadata + two scripts (dev / start)
├── README.md             # template docs and a list of common pitfalls
├── .gitignore
└── src/
    ├── main.js           # entry point: creates the window + mounts the root component
    ├── app.js            # root component: tabs + panel composition
    ├── store.js          # app state: signals created at module scope, shared across components
    ├── theme.js          # design tokens: colors / spacing / font sizes
    └── components/
        ├── counter.js    # local state + a controlled slider
        ├── todo-list.js  # list (each directive + keyed reuse) + input binding
        └── status-bar.js # derived values + Switch / Match multi-state

Generation is refused by default if the directory is not empty; pass --force to proceed. --force only overwrites files with the same names and does not clean up other files.

Option 2: Install the Runtime via npm

The @goxjs/goxjs package ships prebuilt binaries for Windows / Linux / macOS × x64 / arm64 (5 platforms in total, excluding windows-arm64) — no Go environment needed:

npm i -g @goxjs/goxjs   # installs two commands: gox and goxjs
gox                 # enter the REPL
gox app.js          # run a script
npx goxjs app.js    # or run it without a global install

Option 3: Build from Source

Requires Go 1.26+:

git clone https://github.com/14752222/Gox.git
cd Gox
go build ./cmd/gox  # produces gox.exe on Windows, gox on Unix-like systems
./gox app.js        # then use ./gox in place of gox in the tutorials

Note

The tutorials consistently use gox in command examples. If you built from source, substitute ./gox (gox.exe on Windows) yourself — the usage is identical.