Installation

Download (Windows)

The fastest way to get started is the installer from the latest release. It bundles everything wc3-forge needs (including the vendored CASC libraries).

macOS: there is no prebuilt macOS binary — build from source (below). The in-app updater is Windows-only too.

The portable build is published as wc3-forge-v<version>-windows-amd64.zip if you prefer not to run an installer.

Build from source

You'll need Go, Node.js, and the Wails CLI.

Windows

git clone https://github.com/StephenSHorton/wc3-forge
cd wc3-forge
wails build

The binary lands at build/bin/wc3-forge.exe.

macOS (build from source — no prebuilt binary)

macOS has no published release, so building from source is the only way to run it there. Reforged Warcraft III on macOS typically runs through Mead (a Wine-bottle manager); see "Pointing at your Warcraft III install" below. macOS needs one extra step to build CascLib:

git clone https://github.com/StephenSHorton/wc3-forge
cd wc3-forge
./scripts/build-casclib-macos.sh   # one-time: compiles libcasc.dylib
wails build

The bundle lands at build/bin/wc3-forge.app. CascLib is dlopen'd at runtime, so the .dylib must sit alongside the binary inside the .app bundle — the darwin/* postBuildHook in wails.json copies it in for you. The macOS build is arm64 by default; cross-build with wails build -platform darwin/amd64 after running the casclib script on a matching architecture.

Pointing at your Warcraft III install

wc3-forge resolves assets from the loaded map first, then from the CASC mount on your WC3 install. It looks in the OS-conventional location by default (C:\Program Files (x86)\Warcraft III on Windows, /Applications/Warcraft III on macOS). Override it with the WC3FORGE_WC3_PATH environment variable if your install lives elsewhere.

Next: set up Claude Code.