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The fastest way to install Tell is the one-liner in the Quickstart. This page covers building from source and custom feature profiles.

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Build from source

Requires Rust 1.80+ and Cargo: 
git clone https://github.com/tell-rs/tell.git
cd tell
cargo install --path crates/tell
This installs the tell binary with all features enabled — sources, sinks, analytics, TUI, MCP, and LLM.

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Feature profiles

Build with a reduced feature set for specific deployments: 
# Full installation (default) — all sources, sinks, analytics, TUI, MCP, LLM
cargo install --path crates/tell

# OT collector — TCP + syslog sources, disk + forwarder sinks
cargo install --path crates/tell --no-default-features --features ot-collector

# OT forwarder — TCP + syslog sources, forwarder sink only
cargo install --path crates/tell --no-default-features --features ot-forwarder
The ot-collector and ot-forwarder profiles produce smaller binaries suited for edge deployments and air-gapped networks.

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Verify

tell --help
tell --version
With no arguments, tell opens the TUI. Use tell run to start the server in daemon mode.

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Configuration lookup

Tell looks for config files in this order:
  1. --config <path> (explicit flag)
  2. configs/config.toml (current directory)
  3. config.toml (current directory)
If no config file is found, Tell starts with defaults: TCP source on port 50000 routing to stdout. See Pipeline Configuration for the full config reference.