Getting Started¶

Welcome to the Loom documentation! 🎉

This guide will help you set up Loom on your machine and run your first tests.

Installing from GitHub¶

Install the latest release from PyPI:

pip install el-loom

Install the development version directly from GitHub:

pip install git+https://github.com/entropicalabs/el-loom.git

Installing from source¶

1. Clone the repository¶

git clone https://github.com/entropicalabs/el-loom.git
cd el-loom

2. Install Poetry¶

Loom uses Poetry for dependency management.
We recommend installing Poetry in a dedicated virtual environment.

Run the installer:

curl -sSL https://install.python-poetry.org | python3 -
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Make Poetry available permanently by adding it to your shell config:

# For Bash
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

# For Zsh (default on Mac)
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

3. Install Loom with Poetry¶

Inside the project folder:

poetry install

This will install Loom and all required dependencies inside a Poetry-managed virtual environment.

4. Optional configurations¶

Keep the virtual environment inside the project directory:
```
poetry config virtualenvs.in-project true
```

Install extra dependencies (if you plan to contribute, build docs, or use Jupyter notebooks):

poetry install --with dev        # Development
poetry install --with docs       # Documentation
poetry install --with notebooks  # Jupyter Notebooks

5. Run the tests¶

Make sure everything works:

poetry run pytest

If all tests pass, you’re ready to use Loom! 🚀

If you run into issues, check the Poetry documentation or open an issue on GitHub.

Extra. To use loom with Pennylane or CudaQ¶

If you would like to use pennylane-catalyst as the backend for loom, you have to install pennylane-catalyst separately as follows:

pip install pennylane-catalyst~=0.13.0

Alternatively, before installing loom with poetry install, you can run the following command to include pennylane-catalyst into your installation process:

poetry add pennylane-catalyst~=0.13.0

The same process applies for using loom with the cudaq backend.

pip install cudaq~=0.12.0
pip install cuda-quantum-cu12~=0.12.0

If installing through poetry instead:

poetry add cudaq~=0.12.0
poetry add cuda-quantum-cu12~=0.12.0

Note that both cudaq and pennylane might not be available on all machines. We recommend installing loom + cudaq and loom + pennylane-catalyst in separate environments if the package manager raises an error.