Getting started with XenoKit

XenoKit watches your web projects and compiles Sass, JavaScript, TypeScript and CSS when you save. Each project’s rules live in a .xenokit.yml file in the project, which XenoKit writes for you when you set the project up.

Before you start

• A Mac with Apple silicon, running macOS 15 or later.
• An internet connection the first time you install a compiler. XenoKit downloads them from registry.npmjs.org and nodejs.org; you don’t need Homebrew, Node.js or npm.

Coming from CodeKit? Read Import your CodeKit projects instead: XenoKit can bring every project across in one go.

Set up XenoKit

1. Move XenoKit to Applications

   Open the disk image and drag XenoKit to Applications. It’s signed and notarized, so it opens without a warning. Nothing else is installed: the command-line tool lives inside the app, and compilers are installed only when you ask.

2. Install the command-line tool

   Open App Settings›Command Line and click Install. XenoKit links xenokit into ~/.local/bin or ~/bin, whichever is on your PATH. It never asks for an administrator password and never edits your shell files; if neither folder is on your PATH, it shows the line to add, with a Copy button.

3. Add a project

   Open the project menu (the icon and name, top left) and add the project’s folder, or drop the folder on the window. A folder without a .xenokit.yml opens Set Up.

4. Choose what to compile

   Set Up lists each Sass, CSS and script folder in the project, with what choosing it compiles and where the outputs go. Pick the folders you want. Sass partials are shown as dependencies, and a script folder compiles only its entry points (app, main and index to start with).

5. Install the tools it needs

   Set Up lists the compilers your rules need and offers to install the ones XenoKit manages: Dart Sass, esbuild, and PostCSS with Autoprefixer. Every download is checked against its publisher’s hash.

6. Start watching

   XenoKit writes .xenokit.yml and starts watching. Save a file and it compiles; the Log shows every run, and the Files view says what happens to each file.

Open at login

Turn on App Settings›General›Open XenoKit at login. XenoKit then starts without its window, in the menu bar or the Dock, and resumes watching the projects that were on when it quit.

Updating

There are no automatic updates yet. Quit XenoKit, replace it in Applications with the one from the new disk image, and open it again. Your projects, settings, installed tools and logs live outside the app, so they’re kept.