LilyPond Contributor's Guide: 4.4.1 Running ./autogen.sh

### 4.4.1 Running `./autogen.sh`

After you unpack the tarball (or download the Git repository), the contents of your top source directory should be similar to the current source tree listed at http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=lilypond.git;a=tree.

Next, you need to create the generated files; enter the following command from your top source directory:

>     ./autogen.sh --noconfigure

This will generate a number of files and directories to aid configuration, such as ‘`configure`’, ‘`README.txt`’, etc.

Next, create the build directory with:

>     mkdir build/
>     cd build/

We heavily recommend building lilypond inside a separate directory with this method.

#### LilyPond — Contributor’s Guide