Getting started

Mila is a source distribution. C++23 modules cannot ship as prebuilt binaries — the consumer compiles the module graph in its own toolchain — so getting started means building it.

1. Check the toolchain

Earlier Visual Studio 2026 builds have a C++23 module regression; 18.6.2 fixed it. GCC 15.2 and earlier cannot compile the modules at all.

2. Build and test

git clone https://github.com/toddthomson/mila.git
cd mila
cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build
ctest --test-dir build

A clone builds everything — the library, the tests, the samples, the chat app and the developer tools. Each is a MILA_ENABLE_* option that is on when Mila is the top-level project and off when another project consumes it, so a FetchContent consumer compiles the library alone. Set the ones you do not want to OFF to trim a local build.

On Windows you can instead open the folder in Visual Studio, which detects CMakeLists.txt and the bundled presets automatically.

There is also a dev container mirroring the CI toolchain, if you would rather not install CUDA and a compiler locally.

3. Install a model

Models are not included, and you do not convert anything — Mila publishes models ready to run and installs them by name:

mila install Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct-fp4
mila models --online

That first one is the smallest instruct model published and needs no HuggingFace account, so it is the shortest path to a first answer. Larger ones — Gemma 4 12B, Llama 3.1 8B, Qwen 3.8 27B — install the same way.

4. Run something

The chat app is the quickest way to see it work — an instruction-following console with model hot-switching and tool calling:

mila-chat --model Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct-fp4

It opens on whatever your store holds; /model list shows that, and /model install <name> adds to it without leaving the session.

5. Or consume it from your own project

CMake FetchContent is the supported path. Your project compiles Mila’s modules in your toolchain, then links against them like any other target.

The full guide — every step above with exact commands, the dev container, FetchContent details, troubleshooting, and how to open a first pull request — is getting-started.md in the repository. It is the authoritative version; this page is the short road in.