gnomancer

Install gnomancer

gnomancer is a command-line program today. That means a few minutes in the Terminal once, after which running it is one line. A point-and-click app is on the roadmap. Nothing here creates an account or uploads anything.

macOSLinuxWindowsRun itTrouble?

macOS

  1. Open Terminal (press ⌘ Space, type Terminal, press Enter).
  2. If you have never used Homebrew, install it from brew.sh (one command on that page), then install the two prerequisites: 
    brew install python@3.12 openjdk
  3. Install gnomancer: 
    curl -fsSL https://gnomancer.com/install.sh | bash
    This installs the gnomancer package from PyPI into a private folder (~/.gnomancer) and downloads the open-source tools and reference files it uses (about 250 MB, once). You can read the script before running it. Already comfortable with Python? pipx install gnomancer && gnomancer setup is the same thing.

Linux

  1. Install the prerequisites with your package manager. Debian or Ubuntu: 
    sudo apt install python3 python3-venv default-jre
    Fedora: sudo dnf install python3 java-21-openjdk
  2. Then: 
    curl -fsSL https://gnomancer.com/install.sh | bash

Windows

gnomancer runs on Windows through the Windows Subsystem for Linux, which Microsoft ships with Windows 10 and 11. It takes one extra step the first time.

  1. Open PowerShell as administrator and run wsl --install. Restart when asked and set a username and password for Ubuntu when it opens.
  2. In the Ubuntu window, install the prerequisites and gnomancer: 
    sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y python3 python3-venv default-jre
curl -fsSL https://gnomancer.com/install.sh | bash
  3. Your Windows files are visible inside Ubuntu under /mnt/c/, so a file in your Downloads folder is at /mnt/c/Users/YourName/Downloads/.
A native Windows installer is on the roadmap. If you are comfortable with Python on Windows already, pip install gnomancer then gnomancer setup works too; install a Java runtime for the haplogroup and PharmCAT steps.

Run it

First download your raw data file from your testing company. Then:

gnomancer ~/Downloads/dna-data-2026-11-02.zip

It takes about a minute. The report appears in a new folder next to your file; open REPORT.html in any browser. Add --ancestry for a population estimate (slower the first time, it downloads reference models) and --summary summary.md to embed a narrative written by your AI assistant (the run writes a ready-made prompt for it as summary-prompt.md).

If gnomancer is not found, use the full path: ~/.gnomancer/venv/bin/gnomancer.

Trouble?