Important
This repo hosts the signed installer downloads only. App source code lives in a separate repo. The MIT-licensed knowledge engine the desktop talks to is vkfolio/wikiX — install that first.
wikiX Desktop turns a folder of code, documents, and PDFs into a queryable knowledge graph + chat interface. Drop in a folder, ask questions, get answers with citations. Cytoscape graph viewer, syntax-highlighted Book reader, streaming chat with tool-call cards, smart corpus folder watcher, MCP Gateway for Claude Code / Cursor / Codex / Aider, and an Insights dashboard with god-nodes + surprising connections.
Pick the latest installer from Releases:
| OS | File | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| macOS (Apple Silicon + Intel) | wikiX-Desktop_<version>_universal.dmg |
Drag into /Applications |
| Windows 10/11 (x64) | wikiX-Desktop_<version>_x64.msi |
Run the MSI; admin prompt may appear |
| Linux (x64, AppImage) | wikix-desktop_<version>_amd64.AppImage |
chmod +x then double-click |
| Linux (Debian / Ubuntu) | wikix-desktop_<version>_amd64.deb |
sudo dpkg -i wikix-desktop_*.deb |
Auto-update is built in — once installed the app pulls future releases straight from this repo.
You also need the wikiX engine running somewhere reachable. The desktop is the UI; the engine is the brain.
# In a separate terminal:
git clone https://github.com/vkfolio/wikiX.git
cd wikiX
make up-host
make migrate
cat $WIKIX_DATA_DIR/token # remember this tokenIf you're starting fresh, follow the engine quickstart end-to-end, then come back here.
- Launch wikiX Desktop.
- The first-run wizard appears. The Engine URL is pre-filled
(
http://localhost:8080). The Bearer token is auto-filled if the engine is running on the same machine; otherwise paste the token from$WIKIX_DATA_DIR/token. - Click Connect. Welcome to wikiX.
Once connected:
- Corpus — pick a folder. Smart-skip ignores
node_modules,.venv,__pycache__, etc. by default. The pre-sync forecast warns before expensive embed runs. - Search — full SearchRequest builder with hybrid / chunks / graph / code modes, confidence floor, k-knobs, rerank toggle, and saved views.
- Graph — Cytoscape force-directed viewer with five layouts; confidence-styled borders (solid / dashed / dotted) and greyed invalidated edges. PNG + JSON export.
- Chat — full SSE event handling. Tool calls render as collapsible cards with args + result + latency. Markdown rendering with shiki code highlighting, Mermaid diagrams, and KaTeX math. Per-turn retrieval inspector.
- Book — auto-distilled chapters with
[[wikilinks]]and*[cite needed]*pills. - MCP Gateway — generate per-IDE config snippets to point Claude Code / Cursor / Codex / Aider at this engine.
- Insights — god-nodes, surprising connections, recent activity.
- Atlas — cross-wiki bubble map.
Each release ships SHA-256 checksums and platform-native signatures.
- macOS: notarised by Apple. macOS verifies on launch — if Gatekeeper blocks the first open, right-click the app → Open once.
- Windows: Authenticode-signed. Windows SmartScreen may show a one-time warning until the cert builds reputation.
- Linux: AppImage is detached-GPG-signed. Verify with:
gpg --verify wikix-desktop_*.AppImage.sig wikix-desktop_*.AppImage
Checksums live alongside each artifact:
sha256sum -c wikix-desktop_<version>_SHA256SUMS.txt"Couldn't reach the engine" — docker ps should list the wikiX
containers as Up. If not, in your engine clone: make up-host.
"Token rejected" — cat $WIKIX_DATA_DIR/token and paste freshly. The
token is generated on first engine boot and never expires; if you
re-bootstrapped the engine you got a new one.
"Search returns nothing after upload" — embeddings need an LLM
provider. Easiest path: install Ollama, then
ollama pull nomic-embed-text and configure it in Settings →
Providers → Embedding. The desktop's first-run wizard auto-detects
Ollama and recommends models.
"App won't open on macOS — developer cannot be verified" — first
launch only: right-click the app, select Open from the context menu,
confirm the warning dialog. Subsequent launches work normally.
"Linux AppImage won't execute" — chmod +x wikix-desktop_*.AppImage.
| Repo | What it is | Visibility |
|---|---|---|
| vkfolio/wikiX | The MIT-licensed knowledge engine — REST API, MCP server, ingest pipeline, retrieval, book distillation. Self-host with make up-host. |
Public |
| vkfolio/WikiX_App (this repo) | Signed installers + auto-update channel for wikiX Desktop. | Public |
| vkfolio/wikiX-desktop | Source code for the desktop app. | Private |
The desktop talks to the engine only through the engine's public REST API. Anyone can build a different client against the same engine.
- Engine bugs / API issues → file on vkfolio/wikiX/issues.
- Desktop bugs / install issues / UI feedback → file here on vkfolio/WikiX_App/issues.
- Security — please don't open public issues; email the maintainer privately and we'll coordinate disclosure.
Tagged releases follow vMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH. Each tag triggers a build
matrix that produces all four artifacts (.dmg, .msi, .AppImage,
.deb) plus checksums and detached signatures, attached to the GitHub
Release. Auto-update consults
https://github.com/vkfolio/WikiX_App/releases/latest/download/latest.json.
Release notes summarise: what changed, what broke, what's compatible with which engine version. The desktop refuses to start against an engine more than one minor version behind to keep the integration surface honest.
Distributed under the wikiX Desktop EULA — see LICENSE in each release
archive. The underlying knowledge engine is MIT — see
vkfolio/wikiX/LICENSE.
The whole stack started with Andrej Karpathy's April 2026 post on LLM-built knowledge bases — the engine that powers this desktop is one downstream branch of the wave that followed. Direct conceptual debts go to graphify (structural layer) and graphiti (the bi-temporal layer, separate lineage from Zep AI). Plus the long list of libraries catalogued in the engine README — Tauri, React, Cytoscape.js, marked, DOMPurify, Shiki, Mermaid, KaTeX, FastAPI, Gin, Asynq, pgvector, Neo4j, Caddy, OpenTelemetry, tree-sitter, and the rest.