Installation

Prebuilt installers come from GitHub Releases. The Release workflow publishes:

  • macOS arm64 (Apple Silicon): .dmg and .app.tar.gz
  • Linux x64: AppImage, .deb, and .rpm
  • Windows: NSIS installer

There is no prebuilt Intel Mac or Linux arm64 installer. Use build from source on those machines.

The desktop shell is Tauri. After install, the app can check https://github.com/vixl-ai/vixl/releases/latest/download/latest.json for updates from Settings, General.

Install a release

  1. Download the installer for your OS from GitHub Releases, plus SHA256SUMS.txt from the same tag (SHA512SUMS.txt is attached too).
  2. Verify the files in the download directory.
# macOS
shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS.txt

# Linux (Git Bash on Windows can run this too)
sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS.txt

Only trust checksum files from that GitHub Release tag.

  1. Install the bundle and open Vixl.

First launch lands on the home chat input.

Unsigned installers

macOS builds are not signed with a Developer ID and are not notarized. Gatekeeper will block the first open. Right-click the app, choose Open, then Open again. If macOS still refuses, open System Settings, Privacy & Security, and choose Open Anyway.

The Windows NSIS installer is not Authenticode-signed. SmartScreen may show Windows protected your PC. Choose More info, then Run anyway.

Those OS checks are separate from the updater minisign signature, which only verifies in-app updates.

Build from source

Use the Node.js version in .nvmrc (currently 26.7.0), install modules, and boot the desktop app.

  1. Clone the repo.
git clone https://github.com/vixl-ai/vixl.git
cd vixl
  1. Use the Node version in .nvmrc.
  2. Install the Rust toolchain from rustup.rs.
  3. Install modules with npm ci.
  4. Boot the desktop app with npm run tauri -- dev.

npm run dev starts the Vite frontend only. Use the Tauri command for the desktop app.

Dev setup and how maintainers cut a release are in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Next, set up providers and models.