Installation

Desktop App

Choose an artifact actually published for the current version from GitHub Releases. Package formats and platform coverage vary by release; do not assume every release includes .dmg, .msi, .deb, and .AppImage files.

The desktop application combines a thin system shell with the aleph-server core. The shell owns windows, tray, notifications, and platform integration; the core owns inference, tools, state, and the Gateway.

Build from Source

Requirements

• Rust 1.95+ as declared by rust-version in the root Cargo.toml
• Platform C/C++ build tools
• just when using repository just tasks
• Node.js/npm and wasm-bindgen-cli when building WebChat/WASM

SQLite is built through the bundled rusqlite feature, so a separate system SQLite development package is not required.

Build the Core

git clone https://github.com/rootazero/Aleph.git
cd Aleph
cargo build --bin aleph-server --release

The binary is written to target/release/aleph-server.

Repository development tasks:

just deps
just dev
just check
just test

Use the current Justfile as the source of truth for available tasks. The desktop shell and platform installers require additional platform SDKs and the repository's current shell build tasks.

Verify

aleph-server doctor
aleph-server status

To inspect the fixed system-prompt scaffold offline:

aleph-server prompt-size

prompt-size does not start the daemon or access the network. It excludes session-specific identity files, memory, skills, MCP instructions, and tool schemas.

Data Root

Aleph stores configuration and runtime data under ~/.aleph/ by default. ALEPH_HOME overrides this root. Stable entry points include:

Other subdirectories are created on demand by enabled components; use the directories generated by the running version as the source of truth.

Next Steps

• Quick Start — start and verify the Gateway
• First-Time Configuration — current configuration flow
• Configuration — configuration structure