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KentKent
2026 Respawn OSS

Kent Server

Kent runs all its work through a local server process. Frontends are clients: TUI, desktop app, headless runs, and other local integrations all need the server to be running. To start the server, run kent serve.

The server owns all long-running work: sessions, projects, runtime orchestration, background shells, tool execution, tasks, workflows, and storage.

While annoying at times, this:

  • Gives ability to fully isolate work on another machine, VM, or container. See Sandboxing for remote/container setup.
  • Drastically reduces resource consumption
  • Allows agents to work asynchronously during workflows.
  • Allows spawning agents on schedule and periodically.
  • Uses only about 25 MB of RAM while idle.

Background Service

Section titled “Background Service”

To use Kent on your local machine more easily, consider installing a system service that will run kent serve for you at login:

Terminal window
kent service status
kent service install
kent service restart
kent service stop
kent service start
kent service uninstall

All service commands accept --persistence-root and honor KENT_PERSISTENCE_ROOT. The root you install with is remembered, so pass the same root on status/start/stop/restart/uninstall to target that instance.

Service recovery

Section titled “Service recovery”

On Linux, status 2 suppresses automatic crash recovery for the active service-manager activation, while other exits continue restoration; macOS retains restoration after every server exit. On Windows, an observed numeric status 2 stops the service cleanly without recovery, and every other observed numeric status continues restoration; an unexpected service-host failure retains recovery. If Windows cannot confirm termination, the service retains ownership and neither reports Stopped nor launches a replacement. If Windows confirms termination without a numeric status, the service releases the server, launches no replacement, and stops cleanly. A human start or restart, or kent service install without --no-start, begins a new activation; --no-start installs without starting. A later independent operating-system, login, or service-manager activation may start the installed service again.

Backends

Section titled “Backends”
OS Service
macOS LaunchAgent
Linux / WSL2 systemd --user
Windows Windows Service
  • On windows, uninstall --keep-running is not supported; the server is bound to the service and stops with it.
  • Linux headless machines may need lingering enabled so the server survives logout loginctl enable-linger "$USER".

Port Conflicts

Section titled “Port Conflicts”

Service install/start commands refuse to change the service when Kent’s configured server endpoint is already owned by a manual kent serve process or by a non-Kent listener. If you started kent serve manually, stop that process before installing or starting the background service.

Running another server on a different configured port is fine. Kent only checks the endpoint resolved from server_host and server_port.

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