Start guide
Open Kite

Start guide

Kite is a design canvas for people and their agents. This guide takes you from a new workspace to your first shared file in a few minutes.

Overview

Everything in Kite lives in a few places. Learn these words and the rest of the app follows.

  • Workspace: your team. Everyone in it sees the files the others make.
  • File: one canvas for one piece of work: a launch, a site, a set of posts. Files sit in your library, in folders if you like.
  • Pages: a file can hold several, listed above its layers.
  • Frames: the boards on a page that hold a design: a screen, a banner, a logo.
  • Design system: your colours, type, spacing and shadows, which your files and your agents design with.
  • Agents: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and others, connected to Kite, drawing in your files while you watch.

Create a workspace

Sign in with Continue with Google, or enter your email and choose Email me a link. There is no separate sign-up: the first link creates your account. A password is optional; set one later under Your account → Sign-in & security.

Kite then sets you up in three short steps:

  1. Let's set up Kite: name your workspace (we suggest one from your work email), say who you are, and invite teammates if you already know who should join.
  2. Get the Kite app: Kite for Mac, if you want it. You can skip this.
  3. Connect your agent: one click for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or VS Code. You can skip this too.

Skipped something? A card in your library's sidebar keeps the same three things a click away until you dismiss it.

Joining a team

If someone invited you, open the link in their email and choose Join workspace. If your workspace lets in anyone with a company email, signing in with that email is enough: Kite puts you in as an editor and only asks your name.

Your first file

From your library, choose New → New file at the top right. An empty page offers a place to start: a Desktop frame (1440 × 1024), a Phone frame (390 × 844), Draw a frame yourself, or Ask your agent to begin it for you.

Already have work somewhere else? Bring it in:

  • From Figma: copy layers in Figma and paste them into Kite. They arrive as Kite layers. Connect Figma under Your account → Integrations to bring their pictures too.
  • A whole Figma file: open the new tab page, choose Import from Figma and paste the file's link. Every page comes in, as a new file. See Figma.
  • From Kite: New → Import .kite file… opens a file someone downloaded from Kite.

The editor

The canvas sits in the middle, with pages and layers in the left panel and the design panel on the right: size, layout, fills, type and export for whatever you have selected. The toolbar floats at the bottom of the canvas; right-click it to dock it to either side. Its buttons are icons: hover one to see its name and its key.

MoveArrow pointerSelect, move and resize.
HandHandPan the canvas, or hold Space with any tool.
Frame# gridDraw a board to design in. Section, the folder, sits beside it.
ShapesSquareRectangle to start; the small corner on the button opens Ellipse, Line, Arrow, Polygon and Star.
PenPen nibDraw vector paths. The pencil beside it draws freehand.
TextTClick anywhere to start typing.
CommentSpeech bubbleDrop a comment on a frame.

Place a picture, the picture button beside Comment, puts a picture on the canvas. To see a frame on its own, as it will be seen, click the ▶ Preview button beside Share, at the top right; the arrows step through the frames.

Commands worth knowing

Most of what you do to a layer is in its right-click menu. A few to start with:

  • Right-click the empty board and choose Zoom to fit to see everything (or press ⇧1). Right-click a layer for Zoom to selection.
  • Right-click a selection and choose Frame selection to wrap it in a frame, or Add flex to give a frame auto layout (or press ⇧A).
  • Right-click a frame and open Select: Children selects what is inside it, Parent goes back up.
  • Right-click a layer and choose Create component so every copy follows the main one (or press ⌥⌘K).
  • For the whole screen, click Hide sidebars, the button beside the file's name at the top left (or press ⌘\).

Every key is listed in the file menu (the Kite mark, top left) under Keyboard shortcuts, and on Keyboard shortcuts.

Every file keeps its history. Open Version history from the file menu to look back or restore an earlier state.

Comment and share

Click Comment on the toolbar (the speech bubble, or press C), then click a frame to leave a comment where it sits. Type @ to mention a teammate, or a connected agent: the request waits on the comment until you ask your agent to check its Kite requests (in Kite for Mac it can start as soon as you send). Resolve a thread when it is done; resolved threads stay a click away.

Choose Share at the top right of a file to invite people by email as Can view or Can edit, or open it up:

  • Anyone with link can view: for clients and anyone outside your team.
  • Everyone at your workspace can view, or can edit.
  • Invite only: just the people you list.

People outside your workspace can comment but not download. When someone comments on your file or mentions you, it shows in Activity, behind the bell. Choose how often comments reach you by email under Your account → Notifications.

Design systems

A design system holds your colours, type, spacing, radii and shadows, each with a note on what it is for. Files use them as variables, and agents read them before they draw, so what they make looks like yours. Start one in Design systems: Blank, From a preset, From a website, From CSS or From DESIGN.md. You can also right-click a frame and choose Make a design system from this frame.

Bring your agent

Kite is built so the AI tool you already use can design in it. Connect it once from your name → Connect an app, or from Connect an agent… in a file's menu. Your tool opens Kite, you sign in and click Allow; there is no key to copy.

Then ask it for something: “Make me a launch banner in a new Kite file, then give me the link.” While it works, a pill above the toolbar says what it is designing, and the frames it is in glow in its colour.

Step-by-step setup for each tool is in Choose your client.

Stay organised

  • Search, at the top of your library's sidebar (or ⌘K), finds files and folders by name and by the words inside them, and runs commands like New file.
  • Recents, at the top of the sidebar, keeps your latest work; Shared with you appears once someone sends you a file.
  • Folders nest. Drag files onto one, or use Move to from a file's menu. Add to Starred pins a file to the sidebar.
  • Archive a file when you are done with it. Its links stop working until you Unarchive it; it is only deleted when someone chooses Delete forever or Empty archive.

Next steps

PreviousOverviewNextKeyboard shortcuts