Installing with Bower

The recommended way to install Polymer 1.0 is through Bower. To install Bower, see the Bower web site.

Bower removes the hassle of dependency management when developing or consuming elements. When you install a component, Bower makes sure any dependencies are installed as well.

Project setup

If you haven’t created a bower.json file for your application, run this command from the root of your project:

bower init

This generates a basic bower.json file. Some of the questions, like “What kind of modules do you expose,” can be ignored by pressing Enter.

The next step is to install Polymer:

bower install --save Polymer/polymer

Bower adds a bower_components/ folder in the root of your project and fills it with Polymer and its dependencies.

The --save adds the item as a dependency in your app’s bower.json:

{
  "name": "my-project",
  "version": "0.0.0",
  "dependencies": {
    "polymer": "Polymer/polymer#^1.X.Y"
  }
}

Where 1.X.Y is the current stable version of Polymer. For example, if the current version is 1.3.1, the dependency line will show #^1.3.1, which means that your project requires a Polymer version equal to or greater than 1.3.1, but less than 2.0.

Note: Bower versions prior to 1.7.5 defaulted to a narrower version range, using the tilde operator. For example, #~1.3.1, which matches any version equal to or greater than 1.3.1, but less than 1.4.0. If you’re using an older version of Bower, we recommend updating to the latest version and checking the version ranges in your bower.json files.

Updating packages

When a new version of Polymer is available, run bower update in your app directory to update your copy:

bower update

This updates all packages in bower_components/ to the latest stable version.

If the packages don’t update as expected, check the version ranges in your bower.json file as described in Installing with Bower. If they’re correct, try clearing Bower’s cache and re-running the update:

bower cache clean
bower update

Installing from ZIP files

Click the button to download Polymer 1.0 as a ZIP file.

Download ZIP

When you download Polymer as a ZIP file, you get all of the dependencies bundled into a single archive. It’s a great way to get started because you don’t need to install any additional tools. However, if you need to install additional elements, like the Material Design element set, you’ll have to download them as ZIPs as well, or switch to Bower. For this reason we recommend starting with Bower if possible.

Expand the ZIP file in your project directory to create a bower_components folder.

Unlike Bower, the ZIP file doesn’t provide a built-in method for updating dependencies. You can manually update components with a new ZIP file.

Note: If you decide to install Bower later, you can use Bower to update the components you installed from the ZIP file. Follow the instructions in Updating packages.

Using the Polyfills

When you install Polymer (either with Bower or as a ZIP), you get the Web Components polyfill library. For this version of Polymer, you need the webcomponents-lite version of the library, which doesn’t include the shadow DOM polyfill.

Using the polyfills ensures that you can use Polymer with browsers that don’t support the Web Components specifications natively.

Element starter

If you want to publish an element for others to use, the <seed-element> boilerplate is a good starting point. It comes with the tools you need for building, testing and documenting your element.

Create a reusable element guides you through the steps to create, test, document and publish your element.

Polymer Starter Kit

A “batteries-included” application template, the Polymer Starter Kit includes a responsive application layout, tooling for testing and deployment, and even optional support for advanced features like offline access and push notifications.

Check out the Polymer Starter Kit (PSK) tutorials to learn how to:

• Install, build, and locally run the PSK.
• Create a new page of content.
• Deploy the PSK to the web.

Contributing to the Project

If you’d like to hack on the project or submit a pull request, you can visit the GitHub repo. Because there are a number of dependencies, if you’re just trying to use Polymer in a project we suggest you install Polymer with Bower instead of git.

Next steps

Now that you’ve installed Polymer it’s time to learn the core concepts. Continue on to:

Quick tour of Polymer

Developer guide

If you’re coming from Polymer 0.5, check out the Migration guide.