Setting Up a Virtual Environment¶

Sidekick is fully supported using the Python packaged with BinaryNinja, which is the preferred environment for running Sidekick. However, BinaryNinja supports using other Python environments, which can be configured using these instructions.

Create the Environment¶

The following instructions use conda, but any virtual environment can be used. Create the environment with the following command:

NOTE: The easiest way to install conda on MacOS is to use brew install miniforge.

conda create -n sidekick-beta python=3.9 packaging

Install the Required Packages¶

The plugin requires Python 3.9 or later and the following packages:

requests>=2.28.2
networkx>=3.0.0
pygments>=2.14.0
intervaltree>=3.0.2
sentence-transformers>=2.2.2
scikit-learn>=1.1.3
pyjarowinkler>=1.8

Configure BinaryNinja to Use the Environment¶

Use a separate BN_USER_DIRECTORY directory for the beta test.

Update your settings.json file to refer to the sidekick-beta environment.
Activate the environment:
```
conda activate sidekick-beta
```
Locate the paths you will need for the settings.json file. For example, to find the site packages directory:
```
python -c 'import site; print(site.getsitepackages()[0])'
```

Set the paths in the settings.json:

{
    "python.binaryOverride" : "/opt/homebrew/Caskroom/miniforge/base/envs/sidekick-beta/bin/python3.9",
    "python.interpreter" : "/opt/homebrew/Caskroom/miniforge/base/envs/sidekick-beta/lib/libpython3.9.dylib",
    "python.virtualenv" : "/opt/homebrew/Caskroom/miniforge/base/envs/sidekick-beta/lib/python3.9/site-packages"
}