Installation

There are several ways to install Kit. Choose the method that works best for your setup.

Install Script (Recommended)

The fastest way to install Kit on macOS or Linux:

curl -fsSL https://kit-lang.org/install.sh | sh

This installs Kit to ~/.kit/ and adds it to your PATH. You can customize the location with the KIT_HOME environment variable:

export KIT_HOME=/opt/kit
curl -fsSL https://kit-lang.org/install.sh | sh

Homebrew

macOS and Linux users can install Kit via Homebrew:

brew tap kit-lang/kit https://gitlab.com/kit-lang/homebrew-kit.git
brew install kit

To upgrade to the latest version:

brew upgrade kit

asdf / mise

If you use asdf or mise for version management:

asdf

asdf plugin add kit https://gitlab.com/kit-lang/asdf-kit.git
asdf install kit latest
asdf global kit latest

mise

mise plugin install kit https://gitlab.com/kit-lang/asdf-kit.git
mise install kit@latest
mise use -g kit@latest

You can also pin a specific version in your project's .tool-versions file:

kit 2026.1.25

Building from Source

Requirements

Before building Kit, you need:

• Zig 0.15.2 - The Kit compiler is written in Zig
• Git - To clone the repository

Installing Zig

You can install Zig using your system's package manager or download it directly.

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install zig

Linux

# Download from ziglang.org or use your package manager
# For Ubuntu/Debian:
sudo snap install zig --classic --beta

Using asdf (recommended)

asdf plugin add zig
asdf install zig 0.15.2
asdf global zig 0.15.2

Clone the Repository

git clone https://gitlab.com/kit-lang/kit-lang.git
cd kit-lang

Build the Compiler

zig build

This will build the kit executable in zig-out/bin/.

Add to PATH

To use Kit from anywhere, add the bin directory to your PATH:

# Add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc
export PATH="$PATH:/path/to/kit-lang/zig-out/bin"

Verify Installation

Check that Kit is installed correctly:

kit --version

You should see the Kit version number printed.

Editor Setup

VS Code

Install the Kit extension from the VS Code marketplace or from the kit-vscode-extension repository for syntax highlighting and basic language support.

Zed

Install the Kit extension from the kit-zed-extension repository.