---
sidebar_position: 10
---

# Hello World

The aim of this tutorial is to get you up and running with the most basic application using Wails. You will be able to:

- Create a new Wails application
- Build the application
- Run the application

:::note

This tutorial uses Windows as the target platform. Output will vary slightly depending on your operating system.

:::

## Create a new Wails application

To create a new Wails application using the default vanilla JS template, you need to run the following command:

```bash
wails init -n helloworld
```

You should see something similar to the following:

```
Wails CLI v2.0.0

Initialising Project 'helloworld'
---------------------------------

Project Name:      helloworld
Project Directory: C:\Users\leaan\tutorial\helloworld
Project Template:  vanilla
Template Support:  https://wails.io

Initialised project 'helloworld' in 232ms.
```

This will create a new directory called `helloworld` in the current directory. In this directory, you will find a number of files:

```
build/       - Contains the build files + compiled application
frontend/    - Contains the frontend files
app.go       - Contains the application code
main.go      - The main program with the application configuration
wails.json   - The project configuration file
go.mod       - The go module file
go.sum       - The go module checksum file
```

## Build the application

To build the application, change to the new `helloworld` project directory and run the following command:

```bash
wails build
```

You should see something like the following:

```
Wails CLI v2.0.0

App Type:               desktop
Platforms:              windows/amd64
Compiler:               C:\Users\leaan\go\go1.18.3\bin\go.exe
Build Mode:             Production
Skip Frontend:          false
Compress:               false
Package:                true
Clean Build Dir:        false
LDFlags:                ""
Tags:                   []
Race Detector:          false

Building target: windows/amd64
------------------------------
  - Installing frontend dependencies: Done.
  - Compiling frontend: Done.
  - Generating bundle assets: Done.
  - Compiling application: Done.
Built 'C:\Users\leaan\tutorial\helloworld\build\bin\helloworld.exe' in 10.616s.
```

This has compiled the application and saved it in the `build/bin` directory.

## Run the application

If we view the `build/bin` directory in Windows Explorer, we should see our project binary:

```mdx-code-block
<div class="text--center">
  <img
    src={require("@site/static/img/helloworld-app-icon.webp").default}
    width="134px"
  />
</div>
<br />
```

We can run it by simply double-clicking the `helloworld.exe` file.

On Mac, Wails generates a `helloworld.app` file which can be run by double-clicking it.

On Linux, you can run the application using `./helloworld` from the `build/bin` directory.

You should see the application working as expected:

```mdx-code-block
<div class="text--center">
  <img
    src={require("@site/static/img/windows-default-app.webp").default}
    width="50%"
    className="screenshot"
  />
</div>
<br />
```
