Installing Locally

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Installing Locally
Follow the steps below to use the Forest SDK locally.
Installing locally is most useful for development using a QVM. Running programs against a QPU requires a reservation as well as network access to the QPU (available via your provisioned JupyterLab IDE).
Install the Compiler and QVM
Start by downloading the quilc and qvm binaries for your operating system.
If you'd like to skip installing quilc and qvm locally, you can run them from pre-created Docker images instead. For example:
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docker run --rm -it -p 5555:5555 rigetti/quilc -P -S
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docker run --rm -it -p 5000:5000 rigetti/qvm -S
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macOS
To install on macOS, double-click forest-sdk.dmg once it's downloaded. Then double-click forest-sdk.pkg and follow the on-screen instructions.
When you're finished, move on to verify the installation.
To uninstall, remove the following files:
/usr/local/bin/qvm
/usr/local/bin/quilc
/usr/local/share/man/man1/qvm.1
/usr/local/share/man/man1/quilc.1
Windows
To install on Windows, double-click forest-sdk.msi once it's downloaded, then follow the on-screen instructions.
When you're finished, move on to verify the installation.
To uninstall:
1.Use the Windows search bar to search for "Add or remove programs"
2.Uninstall the application named "Forest SDK for Windows"
Linux
There are three ways to install on Linux: deb, rpm, or bare-bones.
deb
Unpack the downloaded tarball and change to its resulting directory by running the following in a terminal (replacing <version> with the downloaded version of the SDK):
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tar -xf forest-sdk-linux-deb.tar.bz2
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cd forest-sdk-<version>-linux-deb
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From here, run the following command to complete the install (replacing <version> with the downloaded version of the SDK):
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sudo ./forest-sdk-<version>-linux-deb.run
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When you're finished, move on to verify the installation.
To uninstall, run:
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sudo apt remove forest-sdk
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rpm
Unpack the downloaded tarball and change to its resulting directory by running the following in a terminal (replacing <version> with the downloaded version of the SDK):
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tar -xf forest-sdk-linux-rpm.tar.bz2
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cd forest-sdk-<version>-linux-rpm
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From here, run the following command to complete the install (replacing <version> with the downloaded version of the SDK):
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sudo ./forest-sdk-<version>-linux-rpm.run
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When you're finished, move on to verify the installation.
To uninstall, run:
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sudo yum uninstall forest-sdk
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or
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sudo rpm -e forest-sdk
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bare-bones
The bare-bones installation only contains the executable binaries and manual pages — it doesn’t contain any of the requisite dynamic libraries. As such, installation doesn’t require administrative or sudo privileges.
First, unpack the downloaded tarball and change to its resulting directory by running the following in a terminal (replacing <version> with the downloaded version of the SDK):
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tar -xf forest-sdk-linux-barebones.tar.bz2
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cd forest-sdk-<version>-linux-barebones
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From here, run the following command to complete the install (replacing <version> with the downloaded version of the SDK):
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./forest-sdk-<version>-linux-barebones.run
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Upon successful installation, this will have created a new directory rigetti in your home directory that contains all of the binary and documentation artifacts.
To uninstall, remove the ~/rigetti directory.
This method of installation requires you, through any means, to install shared libraries for BLAS, LAPACK, and libffi.
On a Debian-derivative system, this could be accomplished with:
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sudo apt-get install liblapack-dev libblas-dev libffi-dev libzmq3-dev
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 Or on any rhel-derivative systems (e.g. Amazon Linux) with:
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sudo yum install -y lapack-devel blas-devel epel-release
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sudo yum install -y zeromq3-devel
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Verify Installation
To check that the binaries were properly installed, run the following commands in a terminal. They should each execute successfully and print version numbers.
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quilc --version
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qvm --version
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Install pyQuil
We publish new versions of pyQuil to PyPI. You can install pyQuil just like any other PyPI package.
pyQuil requires Python 3.7, 3.8, or 3.9
Using pip:
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pip install pyquil
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Using poetry:
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poetry install pyquil
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If you'd like to install pyQuil from source, see the pyQuil GitHub repository.
Using a Virtual Environment
We highly recommend installing into a virtual environment. For example, you can create a virtual environment named .venv and activate it with the following command prior to installing pyQuil or other packages:
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python -m venv .venv
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source .venv/bin/activate
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To deactivate the virtual environment, run:
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deactivate
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Start the Compiler and QVM
Open a terminal window and start the compiler in server mode:
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quilc -P -S
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Then, open a second terminal window and start the QVM in server mode:
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qvm -S
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For more details on using the quilc and qvm binaries, see the quilc Reference and the QVM Reference.
Run a Program
Now that the compiler and QVM servers are running, try running a simple program. Save the following Python script to a file called pyquil_bell.py:
pyQuil v3
pyQuil v2
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from pyquil import get_qc, Program
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from pyquil.gates import H, CNOT, MEASURE
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from pyquil.quilbase import Declare
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​
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program = Program(
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    Declare("ro", "BIT", 2),
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    H(0),
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    CNOT(0, 1),
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    MEASURE(0, ("ro", 0)),
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    MEASURE(1, ("ro", 1)),
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).wrap_in_numshots_loop(10)
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​
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qc = get_qc("2q-qvm")
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​
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print(qc.run(qc.compile(program)).readout_data.get("ro"))
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from pyquil import get_qc, Program
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from pyquil.gates import H, CNOT, MEASURE
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from pyquil.quilbase import Declare
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​
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program = Program(
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    Declare("ro", "BIT", 2),
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    H(0),
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    CNOT(0, 1),
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    MEASURE(0, ("ro", 0)),
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    MEASURE(1, ("ro", 1)),
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).wrap_in_numshots_loop(10)
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​
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qc = get_qc("2q-qvm")
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​
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print(qc.run(qc.compile(program)))
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Then, run your script from a terminal:
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python pyquil_bell.py
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If all goes well, you'll see results similar to the following:
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[[1 1]
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 [0 0]
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 [1 1]
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 [0 0]
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 [1 1]
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 [0 0]
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 [1 1]
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 [1 1]
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 [1 1]
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 [0 0]]
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Using JupyterLab
If you prefer working with Jupyter notebooks instead of Python files, you can install and run JupyterLab easily by running the following in a terminal:
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pip install jupyterlab
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jupyter lab
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We recommend doing this from a virtual environment.
If you're not familiar with using JupyterLab, we recommend this handy guide.
JupyterLab IDE
Forest Docker Image
Last modified 4mo ago
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Contents
Install the Compiler and QVM
Using a Virtual Environment
Start the Compiler and QVM
Run a Program
Using JupyterLab