Installation¶

nova is a git-style dispatcher: nova <cmd> runs a nova-<cmd> executable from your PATH. Install the dispatcher once, then only the tools a machine needs.

Requirements¶

Python 3.11+ and uv
Rust / cargo for nova load, nova storm, nova inspect, and the native extension nova bf builds
A CUDA GPU for nova bf compute and for embedding at any real scale (nova embed falls back to MPS or CPU)
protoc, only if you build the optional Milvus backend

Install everything¶

git clone <repo-url> supernova && cd supernova
uv venv && source .venv/bin/activate   # the Python tools install into this venv
make all
export PATH="$HOME/.cargo/bin:$PATH"   # Rust tools land here
nova --help                            # lists every nova-* tool it can find

The Python tools install into the active virtualenv, so activate it in every shell you use nova from.

Install one tool at a time¶

Target	Command	Language	Notes
`make cli`	`nova`	Python	The dispatcher. No dependencies.
`make embed`	`nova embed`	Python	Pulls torch, sentence-transformers, and more.
`make load`	`nova load`	Rust	Installs to `~/.cargo/bin`.
`make storm`	`nova storm`	Rust	Installs to `~/.cargo/bin`.
`make inspect`	`nova inspect`	Rust	Dev tool: vector count and parquet schema.
`make bf`	`nova bf`	Python + Rust	Pulls torch and builds `nova-textscan`.
`make sweep`	`nova sweep`	Python	Runs on the controller; needs `nova load` and `nova storm` on `PATH`.
`make dist`	`nova dist`	Python	Runs on the controller; pulls SkyPilot.

A machine that only runs nova bf merge doesn't need torch:

uv pip install -e python/nova-bf ./crates/nova-textscan

Other vector stores¶

nova load and nova storm build with Qdrant support only by default. To add the other backends:

make load  LOAD_FEATURES=elastic,opensearch,milvus    # milvus needs protoc
make storm STORM_FEATURES=elastic,opensearch,milvus

Fleet runs¶

There's nothing extra to install on workers. nova dist installs the tools on each node it launches, so only the controller needs make dist. See Distributed.

Environment variables¶

Configs read these through ${VAR} or ${VAR:-default}. Set only the ones your run uses.

Variable	Used for
`QDRANT_URL`, `QDRANT_API_KEY`	The Qdrant cluster (`nova load`, `nova storm`, `nova sweep`)
`AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID`, `AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY`	Reading or writing S3
`AWS_SESSION_TOKEN`	S3 with temporary credentials
`AWS_REGION`	S3 region (defaults to `us-east-1`)
`HF_TOKEN`	Private Hugging Face datasets, writing to `hf://`
`OPENAI_API_KEY`	The OpenAI embedder

Verify¶

nova --help          # every nova-* tool found on PATH
nova load --help     # run, prepare, load, finalize, reindex, delete, inspect
nova bf --help       # compute, merge

Build these docs¶

make docs            # live preview at http://localhost:8000 (needs uv)
make docs-build      # static site in site/