Installation

Install GitComet with a package manager or download a release for your operating system and processor. Desktop builds are available for x86-64 and ARM64 on Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Requirements

• git 2.53 or newer must be installed on your system.
• The desktop app needs a graphical session. Linux supports Wayland, X11, and WSLg.

Check your Git version in a terminal:

git --version

Settings → Executables shows the version and executable detected by GitComet. Select System PATH, or choose Custom executable and browse to your preferred Git executable. This is useful when the desktop app and your terminal find different Git installations.

With an older Git version, GitComet shows an update notice and disables features that require newer Git, including repository maintenance. Install git-lfs or git-annex separately if you use their large-file commands; Executables also shows whether these tools are available.

Supported platforms

GitHub Releases

You can also download the latest prebuilt binaries and installers from GitHub Releases:

• GitComet releases

Build from Source

Building from source is a universal installation path when you want the latest development version, need a local build, or your platform is not covered by the packaged install methods above.

Install Rust at the version required by the checkout's Cargo.toml, plus your platform's native build tools:

• Linux: Clang, mold 3.0.0, a C/C++ toolchain, pkg-config, and the XCB and XKB development libraries. On Debian/Ubuntu, install build-essential clang pkg-config libxcb1-dev libxkbcommon-dev libxkbcommon-x11-dev. Follow the contributor setup to install the pinned mold linker before building.
• macOS: Xcode and the Metal development tools needed by the UI renderer.
• Windows: Visual Studio 2022 or Build Tools with Desktop development with C++, MSVC, and the Windows 10/11 SDK. A runtime redistributable alone is not sufficient to compile the app.

git clone https://github.com/Auto-Explore/GitComet.git
cd GitComet
cargo build --release -p gitcomet --features ui-gpui,gix
cargo run --release -p gitcomet --features ui-gpui,gix -- /path/to/repo

The desktop build needs both the UI and Git backend features shown above. For the current contributor setup, see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Installation File Locations

Default Path of GitComet's Settings Directory

GitComet stores its session, settings and user themes in a per-user application data directory, created on first launch.

Custom themes are read from a themes folder inside that directory — see Custom Themes.

Crash logs have a separate location; see Crash Reports.