Toolchains

vybn uses composable toolchain modules to set up your VM’s development environment. Instead of a fixed set of tools, you choose which toolchains to install — only what you need, nothing more.

Available Toolchains

Name	What it installs
node	nvm + Node.js LTS (default)
python	pyenv + latest Python 3
rust	rustup + stable toolchain
go	Official Go binary (latest)
docker	Docker CE + Compose plugin

By default, only node is installed. To change this, set VYBN_TOOLCHAINS in ~/.vybnrc.

Configuration

Set VYBN_TOOLCHAINS to a comma-separated list of module names:

~/.vybnrc

# Node.js and Python
VYBN_TOOLCHAINS="node,python"

To install no toolchains at all, set it to an empty string:

VYBN_TOOLCHAINS=""

Changes take effect on the next vybn deploy.

Extra Packages

Beyond toolchains, you can install additional system packages and npm globals:

~/.vybnrc

# Extra apt packages
VYBN_APT_PACKAGES="ripgrep fd-find sqlite3 jq"

# Extra global npm packages (requires node toolchain)
VYBN_NPM_PACKAGES="typescript tsx prettier"

VYBN_APT_PACKAGES are installed via apt-get. VYBN_NPM_PACKAGES are installed via npm install -g and require the node toolchain.

Custom Setup Script

For anything beyond packages — cloning repos, configuring tools, setting environment variables — use a custom setup script:

~/.vybnrc

VYBN_SETUP_SCRIPT="$HOME/.vybn/setup.sh"

The script runs after all standard setup completes, in a subshell with set +e so failures don’t abort the deploy. Example:

~/.vybn/setup.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Clone project repos
sudo -u claude git clone https://github.com/myorg/myapp.git /home/claude/myapp

# Install project dependencies
cd /home/claude/myapp && sudo -u claude npm install

Preset Examples

Full-stack web development

VYBN_TOOLCHAINS="node,docker"
VYBN_NPM_PACKAGES="typescript tsx"

Data science / ML

VYBN_TOOLCHAINS="node,python"
VYBN_APT_PACKAGES="libopenblas-dev"

Systems programming

VYBN_TOOLCHAINS="rust,go"
VYBN_APT_PACKAGES="protobuf-compiler"

Everything

VYBN_TOOLCHAINS="node,python,rust,go,docker"

How It Works

During vybn deploy, the startup script is assembled by concatenating several layers:

1. Config header — your VYBN_TOOLCHAINS, VYBN_APT_PACKAGES, and other settings baked as shell variables
2. Network config — Tailscale auth key and other network-specific values
3. base.sh — core setup functions (user creation, Claude Code installation, tmux, SSH hardening)
4. Toolchain modules — one file per enabled toolchain from vm-setup/toolchains/
5. Provider-network variant — e.g., vm-setup/gcp-tailscale.sh orchestrates the setup order
6. User script — your VYBN_SETUP_SCRIPT, if configured

Each toolchain module defines a setup_toolchain_<name>() function. The variant script calls these functions for each enabled toolchain. Modules are idempotent — they check whether the tool is already installed before doing anything.