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Installation

Kova is a native desktop application for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Download the latest release from the Releases page and follow the instructions for your platform below.

macOS

  1. Download the .dmg file from the Releases page.
  2. Open the .dmg and drag Kova.app into your Applications folder.
  3. Launch Kova from Applications or Spotlight.

Universal binary

The .dmg is a universal binary — the same file runs natively on both Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4) and Intel Macs. No separate downloads needed.

Signed and notarised

Kova is signed and notarised by Apple. You will not see any security warning on first launch.

Windows

  1. Download the .msi file from the Releases page.
  2. Run the installer and follow the prompts.
  1. Download the _x64-setup.exe file from the Releases page.
  2. Run the setup executable and follow the prompts.

Test-signed via SignPath

Windows installers are signed via SignPath, but currently under SignPath's test-signing policy rather than a production certificate — production signing is approved on SignPath's side but temporarily blocked by an unrelated submission issue. Expect a SmartScreen warning on first run ("Windows protected your PC" → More info → Run anyway).

Possible Windows Defender false positive

Windows Defender may flag Kova as Trojan:Win32/Wacatac.C!ml during install or update. This is a false positive from Microsoft's heuristic/ML detection tied to the test-signing status above, not an actual threat — allow it in Defender if you hit it. This note will be removed once production signing is live.

Linux

sudo curl -fsSL https://deb.kova.md/key.gpg \
  | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/kova.gpg

sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kova.sources > /dev/null << EOF
Types: deb
URIs: https://deb.kova.md
Suites: stable
Components: main
Signed-By: /etc/apt/keyrings/kova.gpg
EOF

sudo apt update && sudo apt install kova

sudo curl -fsSL https://deb.kova.md/key.gpg \
  | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/kova.gpg

echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/kova.gpg] https://deb.kova.md stable main" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kova.list

sudo apt update && sudo apt install kova

sudo rpm --import https://rpm.kova.md/key.gpg
sudo curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/kova.repo https://rpm.kova.md/kova.repo
sudo dnf install kova

sudo rpm --import https://rpm.kova.md/key.gpg
sudo curl -o /etc/zypp/repos.d/kova.repo https://rpm.kova.md/kova.repo
sudo zypper refresh && sudo zypper install kova

Kova is published on the AUR as kova-bin, a prebuilt binary package. Install it with your AUR helper of choice:

paru -S kova-bin
# or
yay -S kova-bin

Or build it manually with makepkg:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/kova-bin.git
cd kova-bin
makepkg -si

Flathub's current policy excludes LLM-assisted apps, so Kova ships from a self-hosted Flatpak repo:

flatpak install https://flatpak.kova.md/kova.flatpakref
flatpak run md.kova.app

Or build it locally from the manifest in the Kova repository:

flatpak install flathub org.gnome.Platform//49 org.gnome.Sdk//49
curl -fsSL -o packaging/flatpak/kova.deb \
  https://github.com/KovaMD/Kova/releases/latest/download/Kova_Linux.deb
flatpak-builder --user --install --force-clean build packaging/flatpak/md.kova.app.yml
flatpak run md.kova.app
  1. Download the .AppImage file.

  2. Make it executable:

    chmod +x Kova_*.AppImage

  3. Run it:

    ./Kova_*.AppImage --no-sandbox

No automatic updates

The AppImage release does not currently support automatic in-app updates. Check the Releases page manually for new versions. This is a known limitation tracked in issue #3.

AppImageLauncher

For desktop integration (application menu entry, file associations), install AppImageLauncher and double-click the AppImage.

System requirements for AppImage: GTK/WebKit desktop environment, fontconfig.

Building from source

See the Contributing page for full instructions on cloning the repo, installing dependencies, and running a development build.

Verifying your version

After installing, open Kova and check Settings → Updates to see the installed version and optionally enable automatic update checks.

Verifying a download

You don't have to trust a release binary blindly — every release can be checked back to its source.

Each release asset (.dmg, .msi, .exe, .deb, .rpm, .AppImage) carries a signed build provenance attestation tying it to the exact commit and GitHub Actions run that built it. Verify with the GitHub CLI:

gh attestation verify Kova_Linux.deb --repo KovaMD/Kova

A pass confirms the file was produced, unmodified, by Kova's release workflow from the KovaMD/Kova repository.

Rebuild from source (Nix)

For full reproducibility, rebuild from pinned source instead of trusting a prebuilt binary:

nix build github:KovaMD/Kova

Package repositories

The APT and RPM repositories (deb.kova.md, rpm.kova.md) are GPG-signed — apt/dnf verify signatures automatically once the key is added, as shown above. Desktop auto-updates are signed with Tauri's updater key.

See SECURITY.md for how to report a vulnerability.