Install¶

kata is a single Go binary. It has no runtime service dependency beyond the daemon it starts itself, and it stores data locally in SQLite.

Requirements¶

Install Go 1.26 or later from https://go.dev/dl/.

Pre-built release binaries are not published yet. Install from source with go install or build from a clone.

Install with go install¶

go install go.kenn.io/kata/cmd/kata@latest

Go writes the binary to $(go env GOBIN) when set, otherwise to $(go env GOPATH)/bin. Common defaults are ~/go/bin on Unix and %USERPROFILE%\go\bin on Windows. Put that directory on PATH.

Check the install:

kata version
kata --help

Build from a clone¶

On macOS or Linux:

git clone https://github.com/kenn-io/kata.git
cd kata
make install

make install honors GOBIN and defaults to ~/.local/bin:

make install GOBIN=/usr/local/bin

On Windows, PowerShell or cmd.exe:

git clone https://github.com/kenn-io/kata.git
cd kata
go build -o kata.exe ./cmd/kata

Move kata.exe to a directory on PATH.

Development install¶

The main checks are:

make test
make lint
make vet
make nilaway

Federation has additional coverage:

make test-stress
make test-federation-docker

Documentation tooling¶

This site is built with Zensical. Install the docs toolchain into a local virtual environment:

make docs-install

Build or preview the site:

make docs-build
make docs-serve

make docs-check runs the repository's docs structure check and then runs a strict Zensical build when Zensical is installed.