Getting started

komorebi is a tiling window manager for Windows that is comprised of two main binaries, komorebi.exe, which contains the window manager itself, and komorebic.exe, which is the main way to send commands to the tiling window manager.

It is important to note that neither komorebi.exe nor komorebic.exe handle key bindings, because komorebi is a tiling window manager and not a hotkey daemon.

This getting started guide suggests the installation of whkd to allow you to bind komorebic.exe commands to hotkeys to allow you to communicate with the tiling window manager using keyboard shortcuts.

However, whkd is a very simple hotkey daemon, and notably, does not include workarounds for Microsoft’s restrictions on hotkey combinations that can use the Windows key.

If using hotkey combinations with the Windows key is important to you, I suggest that once you are familiar with the main komorebic.exe commands used to manipulate the window manager, you use AutoHotKey to handle your key bindings.

komorebi also includes komorebi-bar.exe, a simple and reliable status bar which is deeply integrated with the tiling window manager, and can be customized with various widgets and themes.

komorebi is available pre-built to install via Scoop and WinGet, and you may also build it from source if you would prefer.

• Scoop
• WinGet
• Building from source
• Offline

Long path support

It is highly recommended that you enable support for long paths in Windows by running the following command in an Administrator Terminal before installing komorebi.

Set-ItemProperty 'HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem' -Name 'LongPathsEnabled' -Value 1

Disabling unnecessary system animations

It is highly recommended that you enable the "Turn off all unnecessary animations (when possible)" option in "Control Panel > Ease of Access > Ease of Access Centre / Make the computer easier to see" for the best performance with komorebi.

Scoop

Make sure you have installed scoop and verified that installed binaries are available in your $PATH before proceeding.

Issues with komorebi and related commands not being recognized in the terminal ultimately come down to the $PATH environment variable not being correctly configured by your package manager and should not be raised as bugs or issues either on the komorebi GitHub repository or Discord server.

Install komorebi and whkd

First add the extras bucket

scoop bucket add extras

Then install the komorebi and whkd packages using scoop install

scoop install komorebi whkd

Once komorebi is installed, proceed to get the example configurations.

WinGet

Make sure you have installed the latest version of winget and verified that installed binaries are available in your $PATH before proceeding.

Issues with komorebi and related commands not being recognized in the terminal ultimately come down to the $PATH environment variable not being correctly configured by your package manager and should not be raised as bugs or issues either on the komorebi GitHub repository or Discord server.

Install komorebi and whkd

Install the komorebi and whkd packages using winget install

winget install LGUG2Z.komorebi
winget install LGUG2Z.whkd

Once komorebi is installed, proceed to get the example configurations.

Building from source

Make sure you have installed rustup, a stable rust compiler toolchain, and the Visual Studio Visual Studio prerequisites.

Clone the git repository, enter the directory, and build the following binaries:

cargo +stable install --path komorebi --locked
cargo +stable install --path komorebic --locked
cargo +stable install --path komorebic-no-console --locked
cargo +stable install --path komorebi-gui --locked
cargo +stable install --path komorebi-bar --locked
cargo +stable install --path komorebi-shortcuts --locked

If the binaries have been built and added to your $PATH correctly, you should see some output when running komorebi --help and komorebic --help

Offline

Download the latest komorebi and whkd MSI installers on an internet-connected computer, then copy them to an offline machine to install.

Once installed, proceed to get the example configurations (none of the commands for first-time set up and running komorebi require an internet connection).

Upgrades

Before upgrading, make sure to run komorebic stop --whkd --bar. This is to ensure that all the current komorebi-related exe files can be replaced without issue.

Then, depending on whether you installed via scoop or winget, you can run the appropriate command:

# for winget
winget upgrade LGUG2Z.komorebi

# for scoop
scoop update komorebi

Once the upgrade is completed you can confirm that you have the latest version by running komorebic --version, and then start it with komorebic start --whkd --bar.

Uninstallation

Before uninstalling, first run komorebic stop --whkd --bar to make sure that the komorebi, komorebi-bar and whkd processes have been stopped.

Then, depending on whether you installed with Scoop or WinGet, run

scoop
uninstall komorebi whkd

or winget uninstall LGUG2Z.komorebi LGUG2Z.whkd.

Finally, you can run the following commands in a PowerShell prompt to clean up files created by the quickstart command and any other runtime files:

rm $Env:USERPROFILE\komorebi.json
rm $Env:USERPROFILE\applications.json
rm $Env:USERPROFILE\.config\whkdrc
rm -r -Force $Env:LOCALAPPDATA\komorebi