---
slug: moon-v2-alpha
title: Alpha release of moon v2 now available!
authors: [milesj]
tags: [alpha, major, release, v2]
---

After months of hard work, we are excited to announce the alpha release of moon v2! This major
release brings a host of new features, improvements, and breaking changes that we believe will
greatly enhance your experience with moon.

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## How to use

You can install the alpha with proto (>= 0.54.1), or download it directly from the
[GitHub release page](https://github.com/moonrepo/moon/releases/tag/v2.0.0-alpha.2).

```shell
$ proto install moon 2.0.0-alpha.3
```

Alternatively, you can try using the new experimental shell install scripts. Be warned that these
haven't been tested thoroughly yet!

```shell
# Unix
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/moonrepo/moon/releases/download/v2.0.0-alpha.2/moon_cli-installer.sh | sh

# Windows
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/moonrepo/moon/releases/download/v2.0.0-alpha.2/moon_cli-installer.ps1 | iex"
```

> The existing shell install script and npm packages have not been updated for v2 yet.

## Breaking changes

Since this is our first major release after v1, there are quite a few breaking changes, far too many
to list here! Please refer to the [official migration guide](/docs/migrate/2.0) for a comprehensive
list of breaking changes and how to address them.

## New features

This wouldn't be a major release without some exciting new features! Here are some of the
highlights:

- New and improved CLI commands
- New configuration formats
- Toolchain and extension WASM plugins
- Default projects
- Config based task inheritance
- Reworked env var handling
- And much more!

For a in-depth look at all the new features and improvements, check out the
[official v2 blog post](/blog/moon-v2.0), which has not been published yet (still a work in
progress).

## Work in a progress

Before we stabilize v2, there are still some features and improvements we want to make. Here are
some of the things we are currently working on:

- Rewriting the [Python toolchain](https://github.com/moonrepo/plugins/pull/101) as a WASM plugin.
  Because this is incomplete, Python is currently not supported in the v2 alpha.
- Updating the `@moonrepo/cli` npm package with the new distribution format. Because of this, the
  npm package is not yet published.
- Removing the auto-escaping/quoting from task arguments. This is a source of much confusion, and is
  only exacerbated by the differences between shells.
- Auditing open issues and PRs to see what else needs to be done before the stable release.
