LilyPond – Music notation for everyone: Development

## Development

## Development for LilyPond 2.25.18

Note: These are unstable development versions. If you have the slightest doubt about how to use or install LilyPond, we urge you to use the stable Download, and read the stable Manuals.

### Release numbers

There are two sets of releases for LilyPond: stable releases, and unstable development releases. Stable versions have an even-numbered ‘minor’ version number (e.g., 2.14, 2.16, 2.18). Development versions have an odd-numbered ‘minor’ version number (e.g., 2.15, 2.17, 2.19).

### Download

Instructions for git and compiling are in the Contributor’s Guide.

> lilypond git repository

Documentation writers and testers will generally want to download the latest binary:

> GNU/Linux x86_64: LilyPond 2.25.18

> macOS x86_64: LilyPond 2.25.18

> MacPorts package

> Windows x86_64: LilyPond 2.25.18

> Source: lilypond-2.25.18.tar.gz

If you are unsure about how to install these binaries, please read the start of the Learning Manual.

### Contributor’s Guide

LilyPond development is a fairly complicated matter. In order to help new contributors, and to keep the whole system (mostly) stable, we have written a manual for development tasks.

- Contributor’s Guide (split HTML) - the manual is split between many HTML pages.
  (small download for each page)
- Contributor’s Guide (big HTML) - read this manual as one huge HTML page.
  (large single download, 748K)
- contributor.pdf - download as a PDF file.
  (large single download, 1008K)

### Regression tests

- Regression tests: This release’s regtests. (pdf version)
- MusicXML tests: This release’s musicXML tests. (pdf version)
- abc2ly tests: This release’s abc2ly tests. (pdf version)

### Manuals

Note: These manuals are for LilyPond 2.24.4; the latest manuals can be found at https://lilypond.org

Introduction
Learning (split HTML) | Learning (big HTML) | learning.pdf
Glossary (split HTML) | Glossary (big HTML) | music-glossary.pdf
Essay (split HTML) | Essay (big HTML) | essay.pdf

Regular
Notation (split HTML) | Notation (big HTML) | notation.pdf
Usage (split HTML) | Usage (big HTML) | usage.pdf
Snippets (split HTML) | Snippets (big HTML) | snippets.pdf

Infrequent
Web (split HTML) | Web (big HTML) | web.pdf
Changes (split HTML) | Changes (big HTML) | changes.pdf
Extending (split HTML) | Extending (big HTML) | extending.pdf
Internals (split HTML) | Internals (big HTML) | internals.pdf

### Validation