Kite for Mac

Download

• Kite for Mac (Apple silicon): every Mac with an M chip.
• Kite for Mac (Intel): older Macs with an Intel processor.

Open the download and drag Kite into Applications. Not sure which Mac you have? Choose About This Mac in the Apple menu: it says Chip for Apple silicon and Processor for Intel.

Sign in

The app signs in through the browser you already use, with the accounts and passwords it has. Choose Continue in your browser, finish signing in there, and Kite comes back to the front, signed in. Signing the app in from a browser also tells that browser to open file links in the app (see below).

Tabs

• Home is the first tab, pinned (⌘1). It holds your library, design systems, settings and everything else that isn't a file.
• One tab per file. Open a file and it gets a tab of its own. Open it again, from anywhere, and its tab comes forward rather than a second one opening.
• Behind your tab. ⌘-click a file to open it in a tab behind the one you are in.
• New tab. The + beside the tabs, or ⌘T, opens a new tab page: New file, Import .kite, Import from Figma, a search of your files, and your recent ones. ⌘N goes straight to a new file in a tab of its own.
• Rename a file by double-clicking its tab, or right-click it and choose Rename.
• Right-click a tab for Rename, Copy Link, Reload, Open in Browser, Close Tab and Close Other Tabs.
• An agent at work lights its file's tab with a small mark: An agent is working here.
• Next time you open Kite, your windows and tabs come back as you left them.

Closing a tab while it is still saving asks first: Kite is still saving your changes. Choose Keep it open and give it a moment, or Close anyway and lose the last edits.

Windows and split view

• Drag a tab out of the strip to give it a window of its own.
• Drag it onto another window's strip to move it there.
• Drag it onto the page instead to split the window: two files side by side, on the half you let go over. Drag the line between them to resize. To go back to one, right-click a tab and choose Separate Tabs, or close either side.

Tabs in the background

Each file tab is a whole editor, so Kite lets tabs you haven't looked at in a while give their memory back: one left in the background for two days, or, once more than five are open behind yours, one hidden for ten minutes. It keeps its place in the strip and loads again when you click it. Kite never does this to the tab in front, a tab an agent is working in, or one still saving.

Menus and shortcuts

These are the app's own menus. Edit has the usual Undo, Cut, Copy and Paste, which the canvas uses. Zoom keys and ⌘R aren't in the menus: they belong to the canvas (see Keyboard shortcuts).

File links open in the app

A link to a Kite file opened in your browser, from an email, a chat or your agent, goes to the app and opens its tab, or brings it forward. The browser tab says Opening in Kite…, with Open here instead if you would rather stay in the browser, and Always open file links in the browser to stop it for good.

This is set per browser, because another computer may not have the app. A browser you signed the app in from does it already. In any other, turn on Open file links in the desktop app in Settings → Profile. Links to other sites, and to Kite's docs, open in your browser.

.kite files in Finder

Double-click a .kite file in Finder and it opens in the app as a new file of your own, in a tab of its own, just as Import .kite file… does in your library. See Bring work in.

Notifications

New comments on your files, @mentions and invites arrive as Mac notifications. Click one to open the file, or the invite. The Dock icon shows how many unread items are behind the bell. Nothing arrives while your screen is locked; what came in shows when you unlock. Choose which comments reach you by email in Notifications.

Agents on your Mac

Add an agent in one click

In the app, Connect an agent (in Settings → Agents, or Connect an agent… in a file's menu) adds Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and the Claude app with one button: Add to Claude Code, Add to Codex, Add to Cursor or Add to Claude. There is nothing to sign in to: the agent uses Kite through the app. Claude Code and Codex have Kite in their next session; quit and reopen the Claude app to see it.

Through the app, an agent sees what you have open:

• The file in your front tab is what it means by “this file”.
• It can list your tabs, and open a file in a tab behind yours, never taking your place.
• A file it changes opens behind your tab, so its work is there when you look.

An agent added this way keeps working when the app is closed, through kite.new. Kite → Agents Can Use This App, on by default, is the switch for all of this. Other agents connect as they do anywhere: see Choose your client.

Requests run on your Mac

In a browser, a comment that asks your agent for something waits until you tell your agent. In the app, a request for Claude or Codex can start on your Mac straight away: write “@Claude make this card denser” in a comment and Kite starts Claude Code on that one request (Codex for “@Codex”). The @ list offers the agents you connected to your account, listed in Settings → Agents → Your agents; an agent added in one click above works through the app's own sign-in and isn't among them.

• The comment box says Run with Claude Code when sent, with a switch. Turned off, it says Claude will wait · start it from the comment, and the comment offers Run now. Kite remembers your choice.
• While it runs, the comment says Claude is working…. When it is done, it answers in the thread, the comment says Done by Claude, and a notification tells you. A run stops after 15 minutes.
• Not installed? Kite says so and offers How to install: the install command to copy, Open Terminal (it types the command for you; you press Return), and Check again once it's done, with no restart. Codex also needs signing in: run codex login once.

Agents started this way sign in to Kite as Kite Desktop, listed in Settings → Agents → Your agents, where you can disconnect it. Each run can reach only the file its request is in.

The agent runs with your own settings. Kite's tools and reading the web are always allowed; any other tool follows the rules you set in Claude Code or Codex, and one they don't allow is refused, which the agent says in its reply.

Agents Run Any Tool

Kite → Agents Run Any Tool, off by default, lets those agents run every tool they have without asking, including commands on your Mac. Turning it on asks first: Let agents run any tool without asking?, then Allow Any Tool.

Updates

Kite checks for a new version when it opens and every few hours, and downloads it in the background. When it is ready, a bar across the top says Kite … is ready: choose Restart to use it now, or Later, and it installs the next time you quit. To check now, choose Kite → Check for Updates….

The app shows the Kite website, so the design tools update with it, app update or not. When they do, a bar says Update available: choose Update to reload.

Offline

If Kite can't reach the internet, a tab says You're offline and picks up where you were as soon as it can. In a file you are already in, changes you make while offline save when you are back.