Installation

Kolbo Code ships as a single native binary per platform. Pick whichever install method fits your toolchain — npm is the most common.

npm / bun / pnpm / yarn

The package is published as @kolbo/kolbo-code on npm:

# npm
npm install -g @kolbo/kolbo-code

# bun
bun install -g @kolbo/kolbo-code

# pnpm
pnpm add -g @kolbo/kolbo-code

# yarn
yarn global add @kolbo/kolbo-code

After install, the kolbo binary is available on your PATH:

kolbo --version
kolbo            # launches the TUI in the current directory

"command not found" after install?

On macOS, npm's global bin directory may not be in your shell PATH.

Quick fix — run with npx instead:

npx @kolbo/kolbo-code

Permanent fix — add npm's global bin to your PATH:

# Find where npm puts global binaries
npm config get prefix

# Add it to your shell (zsh is the default on macOS)
echo 'export PATH="$(npm config get prefix)/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

# Now it works
kolbo --version

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew install kolbo

Windows (Scoop / Chocolatey)

scoop install kolbo
# or
choco install kolbo

Verify the install

kolbo --version
kolbo auth list

If kolbo auth list prints an empty table, continue to Authentication to sign in with your Kolbo.AI account.

System requirements

• OS: macOS 12+, Linux (glibc 2.31+), Windows 10+
• Terminal: any modern terminal with 256-color and UTF-8 support (iTerm2, Windows Terminal, WezTerm, Alacritty, Kitty, Ghostty, etc.)
• For voice input: a working microphone. FFmpeg is bundled with the binary — you do not need to install it separately.

Upgrading

Kolbo Code self-upgrades:

kolbo upgrade

Or reinstall the latest via your package manager.