Building from Source

kftray uses Tauri with a Rust backend and a React frontend. kftui uses Rust and Ratatui and can be built without the frontend.

RequirementsCopy Anchor Link

Install Git and the stable Rust toolchain through rustup. For desktop builds, install mise to manage the frontend tools and build tasks:

curl https://mise.run | sh
rustup toolchain install stable

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/hcavarsan/kftray.git
cd kftray

Desktop appCopy Anchor Link

From the repository root, install the tools and dependencies:

mise install
mise run setup

mise install installs Node.js 26, pnpm 12 and the Syft and Grype security tools. It does not install Rust. mise run setup installs platform dependencies and pnpm packages, including the Tauri CLI.

Start the development app:

mise run dev

Build the production app:

mise run build

Platform dependenciesCopy Anchor Link

The setup task detects Linux, macOS or Windows and installs the dependencies for that platform.

Linux setup supports Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch and openSUSE. Package names differ by distribution. See Tauri prerequisites for manual platform setup.

Without miseCopy Anchor Link

Install Node.js 26 and the platform prerequisites, then run:

npm install -g pnpm@12
pnpm install
pnpm tauri dev

For a production build:

pnpm tauri build

Standalone Cargo buildCopy Anchor Link

Build the frontend before compiling a desktop binary directly with Cargo:

pnpm install
pnpm build
cargo build --release --bin kftray-helper
cargo build --release --bin kftray
./target/release/kftray

The Rust build script can create an empty frontend/dist so Rust checks can run without frontend assets. A working desktop binary needs the built assets, including index.html and logs.html.

Terminal appCopy Anchor Link

From the repository root:

cargo build --release --bin kftui
./target/release/kftui

For a development build:

cargo run --bin kftui

The release binary is in target/release/. On Windows, it is target/release/kftui.exe. If a build reports an unsupported Rust version, update the stable toolchain with rustup update stable.

Checks and build tasksCopy Anchor Link

Install nightly rustfmt for mise run format:back. Backend coverage tests also need cargo-llvm-cov and cargo-nextest:

rustup toolchain install nightly --profile minimal --component rustfmt
cargo install --locked cargo-llvm-cov cargo-nextest

Run mise tasks for the current task list. See development for the daily workflow and troubleshooting.