Command Line Installation

Use the CLI to run Kaya from your terminal. To run Kaya in your browser, see WebAssembly setup. After installation, configure the tool server and model providers. To learn the language, open the separate Language Documentation.

The native standalone archive contains the Rust kaya CLI, kayad daemon and required colocated kaya-tool-server. Core execution runs without Node, Bun, npm or a separate language worker. Native rendering providers may require configured external tools such as Chromium, Poppler or Calibre. Optional React/TSX rendering requires a separately installed Node/tsx/React toolchain; see media rendering.

Native standalone installation

The command above pins the displayed version by passing KAYA_VERSION to the installer process. Final releases use the short website URL, https://kaya-lang.org/install.sh; candidates use their immutable versioned installer. The release page also links the versioned installer for callers who want to retain that exact script. Assign KAYA_VERSION to bash, after the pipe, so it reaches the installer rather than only curl.

Use the displayed version-pinned command for 0.1.0. It selects that exact release independently of the default channel. bash alone does not download a URL. The canonical domain is kaya-lang.org.

Candidates require an explicit version; latest and dev do not select them. The archive includes checksums, license terms and third-party notices. Checksums establish integrity over HTTPS, not an independent publisher signature.

The Unix installer verifies metadata, archive membership and file checksums before selecting a complete cohort through ~/.kaya/current. Executable links live in ~/.kaya/bin; follow the installer's PATH and shell-profile instructions and open a new terminal. Keep kaya, kayad and kaya-tool-server together. Standalone does not install editor tools, kaya-acp or kaya-utils.

After an installation succeeds, open a new terminal and check:

kaya --help

The CLI auto-starts the local daemon on localhost the first time you run a program, so there's nothing else to wire up. Remote --daemon-url endpoints must already be running. See the command-line reference for the kaya commands and explicit kayad lifecycle controls.

Stop older daemons manually before upgrading to the native control protocol. The installer preserves and refuses an old flat installation; use a fresh KAYA_INSTALL_DIR after stopping the old daemon. The product version is separate from daemon protocol and HTTP binding 2.0.0. Saved programs retain immutable source snapshots; upgrading binaries does not rewrite a saved program.

Linux GNU x64 is the qualified native platform for 0.1.0. Other native platforms are not established by a Linux build or by running PowerShell refusal checks on Linux. See release status for current availability and Getting Started for a first run without a model provider.

Syntax highlighting

Editor support for .kaya files — syntax highlighting plus language tooling.

VS Code

Native editor packages are not published with the standalone distribution. Its archive does not include kaya-lsp or a VS Code extension. Public installation instructions will accompany a separate editor release.

The native editor implementation provides syntax highlighting, diagnostics and document formatting. Hover and completion are not implemented by the native language server.

Vim / Neovim

A tree-sitter grammar is available for Neovim via nvim-treesitter. First follow the setup instructions to register the custom Kaya parser and filetype, then install the parser:

:TSInstall kaya