## Overview - **Modern features brought to IRC.** Push notifications, link previews, new message markers, and more bring IRC to the 21st century. - **Always connected.** Remains connected to IRC servers while you are offline. - **Cross platform.** It doesn't matter what OS you use, it just works wherever Node.js runs. - **Responsive interface.** The client works smoothly on every desktop, smartphone and tablet. - **Synchronized experience.** Always resume where you left off no matter what device. To learn more about configuration, usage and features of The Lounge, take a look at [the website](https://thelounge.chat). The Lounge is the official and community-managed fork of [Shout](https://github.com/erming/shout), by [Mattias Erming](https://github.com/erming). ## Installation and usage The Lounge requires latest [Node.js](https://nodejs.org/) LTS version or more recent. [Yarn package manager](https://yarnpkg.com/) is also recommended. If you want to install with npm, `--unsafe-perm` is required for a correct install. ### Running stable releases Please refer to the [install and upgrade documentation on our website](https://thelounge.chat/docs/install-and-upgrade) for all available installation methods. ### Running from source The following commands install and run the development version of The Lounge: ```sh git clone https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge.git cd thelounge yarn install NODE_ENV=production yarn build yarn start ``` When installed like this, `thelounge` executable is not created. Use `node index