Getting started¶

What you'll need¶

A C++23 compiler: GCC 14+, Clang 18+, or MSVC 19.40+ (VS 2022 17.10+ / VS 18).
CMake 4.0+ and Ninja.
Git — vcpkg is vendored as a submodule at deps/vcpkg, so there's nothing to install machine-wide for it. It provides Catch2 for the test suite, pinned to the submodule commit.
Qt 6.8 — only needed if you want to build the GUI app (the default). Qt ships as an official prebuilt package rather than being built from source (a from-source Qt build is huge, and on Windows its build tree overruns MAX_PATH). Install it with ci/install-qt.ps1 (Windows) or ci/install-qt.sh (Linux/macOS) — both use aqtinstall. See CI & dependencies for details.

Clone¶

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/iainchesworth/CountdownSolver

Already cloned without --recurse-submodules? Run:

git submodule update --init --depth 1 deps/vcpkg

Build and run¶

# Configure + build the full project (library, Qt app, tests) with a preset.
# Every preset states its build type explicitly: <toolchain>-debug or
# <toolchain>-release, e.g. windows-msvc-debug, linux-gcc-release,
# linux-clang-debug, macos-clang-release, windows-clang-debug.
cmake --preset windows-msvc-debug -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<qt>/6.8.3/<arch>
cmake --build --preset windows-msvc-debug

# Run the app.
./build/windows-msvc-debug/bin/countdownsolver

Just want the solver library and tests, no Qt/GUI?

cmake --preset linux-gcc-debug -DCOUNTDOWN_BUILD_APP=OFF
cmake --build --preset linux-gcc-debug
ctest --preset linux-gcc-debug

vcpkg bootstraps itself automatically on first configure — no manual vcpkg install step.

For the full picture — every preset, sanitizer flags, and cpack packaging — see Building & packaging. For the test suite and coverage gate, see Testing & coverage.

Using your own word list¶

The letters game ships with a bundled dictionary (~122k words). To use your own instead, drop a newline-delimited word list at <config-dir>/words.txt (the app reports the exact path per platform in Settings) and restart the app.