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Windows: use WSL2

Kin's first-class platforms are Linux and macOS. On Windows, the supported path is WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux 2) running a Linux distribution. Install and run Kin inside WSL2 exactly as you would on native Linux.

Why WSL2 and not native Windows

Two parts of Kin are built around Unix runtime mechanics:

  • Transparent filesystem projection (kin-vfs) works by intercepting libc calls via LD_PRELOAD (Linux) / DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES (macOS). That interception model does not exist on native Windows, so the "any tool sees graph-backed files as normal files" experience is Linux/macOS only.
  • Semantic vector search ships enabled on Linux/macOS. The native Windows CLI artifact (kin-windows-x86_64.zip) is built vector-free (--no-default-features) and is intended as a limited convenience binary, not the full product surface.

Running under WSL2 gives you the complete, vector-enabled Kin with working filesystem projection and the same behavior the project tests and benchmarks against.

Setup

  1. Install WSL2 with a Linux distribution (Ubuntu is a good default). From an elevated PowerShell:

    wsl --install -d Ubuntu

    Reboot if prompted, then open the Ubuntu shell to finish first-time user setup.

  2. Inside the WSL2 Linux shell, install Kin the same way you would on Linux — this is the same one-path flow documented in the quickstart:

    curl -fsSL https://get.kinlab.dev/install | sh

    The installer launches the kin setup guided wizard for you. Answer its "What do you want Kin for?" prompt (the AI agents intent is the default), then verify with kin setup status — inside WSL2 the VFS projection check is supported, unlike native Windows.

  3. Work on your repositories from inside the WSL2 filesystem (e.g. ~/projects/...). Initialize, embed, and use Kin as usual:

    kin init
kin embed     # build the vector index for semantic search / kin locate
kin status

    For best performance, keep repositories on the WSL2 ext4 filesystem rather than under /mnt/c; cross-OS filesystem access through /mnt/* is noticeably slower and does not support the projection layer cleanly.

Native Windows binary (limited)

If you only need the core CLI and cannot use WSL2, install with PowerShell:

irm https://get.kinlab.dev/install.ps1 | iex

The installer prints the limitation up front, verifies the download's SHA-256 checksum, and still requires kin-daemon (it aborts on a daemon-less archive). The native kin-windows-x86_64.zip it installs is vector-free (semantic search disabled) and does not provide the transparent filesystem projection: projection relies on Unix library injection (LD_PRELOAD / DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES), which native Windows does not offer. Windows projection is planned via ProjFS — an optional feature started by an explicit daemon init, not injected by the shell hook — so on native Windows the vfs_projection health check reports n/a rather than ok. Treat the native binary as experimental; WSL2 remains the recommended path.