Alpha status

Kanade is not publicly downloadable yet. The app is in private alpha: the signed Windows installer/update channel exists for maintainer verification, while the source repo and desktop builds stay private.

This page is here so early readers know the current status and what the alpha installer changes on disk.

Current status

• No public installer. The desktop app is not available to download or request yet.
• Source is private. The public tracker is for issues, feedback, and release notes, not for downloading the app today.
• The desktop update channel exists internally. Each promotion is verified against the installed desktop app, live manifest, payload URL, docs, and public site before it is treated as a real release candidate.

Planned installer shape

The Kanade alpha ships as a Windows NSIS installer: per-user, no admin required. Your data lives in %LOCALAPPDATA%\kanade\, with binaries installed alongside it.

Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
• WebView2 runtime. Ships preinstalled on Windows 11 and modern 10. If it’s missing, the installer drops a small bootstrapper that fetches it from Microsoft.
• A Claude Code account. You provide the auth. kanade does not ship Claude Code; it talks to the claude CLI that’s already on your machine.

Getting access

Access is not open. There is no public alpha download, invite flow, or tester request form yet. Public readers can use the issue tracker for feedback on the project, not as an installer request form.

The future installer file is expected to be named kanade_<version>_x64-setup.exe.

When builds are available

When a private build is available to the maintainer, double-click the installer. If the build is not code-signed yet, Windows SmartScreen may show a blue prompt the first time. Public readers should not expect a downloadable build from this page yet.

The installer:

1. Drops binaries at %LOCALAPPDATA%\kanade\ (kanade-desktop.exe, kanade-daemon.exe, uninstall.exe).
2. Creates a Start Menu shortcut at Start Menu\Programs\kanade.lnk.
3. Does not modify the registry beyond the per-user uninstall entry.
4. Does not prompt for admin elevation.

The expected silent install command will look like this:

Start-Process -FilePath ".\kanade_<version>_x64-setup.exe" -ArgumentList "/S","/CURRENTUSER" -Wait

First launch

After a real install, search kanade in Start and open it. The first run shows the wizard — see First-run wizard for what each field means.

Verify the install

After a real install, both of these paths should resolve:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\kanade\kanade-desktop.exe     (~4.9 MB)
%LOCALAPPDATA%\kanade\kanade-daemon.exe      (~41 MB)

And the Start Menu shortcut should show the kin-gold 奏 icon. If you see a generic Windows icon instead, the icon cache is stale — sign out and back in, or run ie4uinit.exe -show from a Command Prompt to force a refresh.

Uninstall

Settings → Apps → kanade → Uninstall runs the bundled uninstaller. By design it leaves your data alone — accounts.json, the SQLite chronicle (kanade.db), and logs/ survive uninstall so a reinstall picks up where you left off. To remove everything, delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\kanade\ manually after running the uninstaller.