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KentKent
2026 Respawn OSS

Quickstart

1. Install Kent server and CLI

Section titled “1. Install Kent server and CLI”

Open PowerShell and run:

Terminal window
irm https://kent.sh/install.ps1 | iex

Standalone binaries are not auto-updated. Re-run the install script to update.

Check the installed version with: kent --version

2. Install the background service

Section titled “2. Install the background service”

Kent consists of two apps: whatever client you prefer, and the server.

If the install script did not install the background service, or you used a package manager, install it below.

Open PowerShell as Administrator and run:

Terminal window
kent service install

See Kent Server for more info.

3. Install Kent Desktop

Section titled “3. Install Kent Desktop”

The desktop app lets you use Kent’s Workflows and Tasks feature to build agentic graphs and deterministic pipelines to fully automate processes and scale to 10s or 100s of agents.

Kent Desktop showing a project kanban board with tasks grouped by workflow stage

Manual install

Section titled “Manual install”

Download the installer for macOS Apple Silicon, Linux x86_64, or Windows x64 at kent.sh/desktop, or install the macOS app via Homebrew:

Terminal window
brew install --cask respawn-llc/tap/kent-desktop

Homebrew installs update through brew upgrade, standalone installs self-update.

First use

Section titled “First use”

After the server is running, run kent to start the TUI. Add your first provider connection for inference.

After that, you can add multiple subscriptions or model providers. See Authentication and connections for further configuration.

Main terminal workflows

Section titled “Main terminal workflows”
  • Press F1 to invoke the help menu.
  • Use Enter to steer the model, Tab to queue messages. Slash commands can be queued too!
  • Use Shift+Tab to toggle between detailed transcript mode and lean ongoing mode.
  • Type $ <command> to execute a shell command and show its output to the model.
  • Press Esc twice to enter Edit mode, which lets you go back in time, edit a previous message, and fork the session starting with it. Use Up/Down to walk through user messages. File edits are not rolled back.
  • Use the Up/Down arrow keys to select and resend previous prompts.
  • Press Ctrl+V/D, Alt+V/D to paste clipboard images or text.
  • Use /review to start a code review. After the review finishes, you can use /back to teleport to the original session.
  • /name <new-name> will set your session name in the picker and terminal title.
  • /autocompaction will toggle compaction, and /compact will trigger one. If autocompact is off, you can go above 100% context usage if model allows it. Going above 100% will cost more and degrade model performance. Repeating /compact before the next model request succeeds without compacting the conversation again.
  • Run /status to get detailed info about the session.

For the full command reference, see Slash Commands.

Configuration

Section titled “Configuration”

Kent reads settings from ~/.kent/config.toml. The full reference is on the Configuration page.

Skills and slash commands

Section titled “Skills and slash commands”

On first launch, the setup wizard can optionally import existing skills and slash-command directories from supported providers.

Kent discovers skills from:

  • <workspace>/.kent/skills
  • ~/.kent/skills
  • <persistence-root>/.generated/skills

You can disable skills for new sessions in config.toml:

[skills]
creating-skills = false

Changes take effect when a session starts or after compaction.

Supervisor

Section titled “Supervisor”
  • Use /supervisor to toggle reviews for the current session. It reviews the model’s work and adds about 15% to costs when it uses the main model. See Configuration to choose its model.

Advanced

Section titled “Advanced”

Once you’re comfortable driving the traditional agentic CLI, consider upgrading to workflows.

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