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01: Installation

Concepts covered:

  • How Hatch is distributed and installed
  • CLI structure and available commands
  • Configuration directories and cache management

Skills you will practice:

  • Installing Hatch using pip
  • Verifying the installation
  • Exploring CLI help and available commands

This article covers the installation of Hatch, a package manager for Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers.

Step 1: Install Hatch

  1. Ensure you have Python 3.12 or later installed on your system.
  2. Install Hatch using pip:
git clone https://github.com/CrackingShells/Hatch.git
cd Hatch
pip install -e .
  1. Verify the installation by checking the version:
hatch --version

You should see output like hatch 0.6.1. You can also view available commands:

hatch --help

Step 2: Understand the CLI Structure

Hatch provides several command groups:

  • hatch create - Create new package templates
  • hatch validate - Validate package structures
  • hatch env - Environment management commands
  • hatch package - Package management commands

Global Configuration Options

The CLI accepts the following global configuration options:

  • --envs-dir - Directory to store environments (default: ~/.hatch/envs)
  • --cache-ttl - Cache TTL in seconds (default: 86400 seconds = 1 day)
  • --cache-dir - Directory to store cached packages (default: ~/.hatch/cache)

Step 3: Explore Available Commands

View detailed help for specific command groups:

# Environment management
hatch env --help

# Package management
hatch package --help

Exercise: Explore the help output for the create command. What options are available for each?

Solution 
# positional arguments:
#   name                  Package name
#
# options:
#   -h, --help            show this help message and exit
#   --dir DIR, -d DIR     Target directory (default: current directory)
#   --description DESCRIPTION, -D DESCRIPTION
#                         Package description

Next: Create Environment