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Install the Rive CLI, create a project, and open the live preview. By the end of this guide, you’ll have a .riv file you can load with the Rive Runtimes.
1

Install the CLI

The CLI runs on macOS with Apple Silicon, on Linux x86_64, and on Windows.
Add the CLI to your PATH so the rive command is available in every new shell, then reload your current shell to pick it up:
Run rive doctor to check your install.
2

Create a project

That writes a rive.yaml, an AGENTS.md for coding agents, a .gitignore, and a scene.rml holding the same frame the Editor gives a new file: an artboard, a timeline, and a state machine that plays it on load. A shape you add and key starts animating without any further setup.Everything else you drop in the folder is picked up by extension: .luau scripts, .wgsl shaders, images and fonts. The generated rive.yaml sets name and turns the build logs on; everything else in rive.yaml is optional.
3

Open the preview window

This opens a window showing the scene and watches the directory. Save any file and it rebuilds and reloads, writing myproject/build/myproject.riv, the file you can load with a runtime.A new project has nothing drawn in it yet, so you get a dark rectangle. Keep this running in one terminal while you edit in another.
To build without opening a window, use rive myproject --once. To check that the project compiles without writing anything, use --verify.

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Starting from an existing Rive file

If the work already exists in the Rive Editor, convert it into a CLI-ready project rather than starting over. Export a .rev from the Editor, then point rive create at it:
The scene comes out as scene.rml, and every script, shader and asset is written as its own file, laid out the way the Editor’s Assets panel had them. You also get the usual rive.yaml, AGENTS.md and .gitignore, so it is an ordinary project from that point on. The project name has to be empty or new. Omit it and the .rev’s own name is used, so myfile.rev becomes myfile/.

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Signing in

You don’t need to sign in to create, preview, or build projects locally. Sign in when you need to publish a file or export a .rev to open in the Rive Editor:
An account is required for --publish, which signs the file through Rive’s API, and --rev, which exports a .rev. Everything else runs locally and works signed out and offline.
A file containing scripts that is destined for the web must be built with --publish. Unsigned scripts are rejected by the CDN and the web runtimes. A file with no scripts is unaffected.
--publish watermarks what it writes until the project is bound to a Rive file in your account. Binding is done by rive push, which is coming soon. Until then, every published file carries the watermark, and --once writes an unwatermarked build for local use.

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More resources

  • RML - the markup that describes a scene
  • AI Agents - hand the project to Claude Code or Cursor
  • Examples - sample projects to start from, rendering without a window, and CI
  • Commands - every command and flag