Installation

Kog's entire toolchain installs through npm. You do not need ESP-IDF, CMake, a C compiler, Python, or Homebrew — not to develop, not to flash.

No install at all?

Kog Studio runs the whole toolchain — editor, simulator, flashing, live hot reload — in your browser. Great for trying Kog before installing anything.

Requirements

• Node.js 20 or newer. The LTS lines (20 and 22) are recommended and best-tested; newer versions (including 24) work too. kog doctor flags anything older than 20, where prebuilt native bindings may be missing.
• A USB data cable if you have a board (charge-only cables are the #1 support issue in embedded — they power the board but carry no data).
• No hardware? Skip straight to the simulator.

Create a project

npm create kog@latest my-app
cd my-app
npm run dev

create-kog scaffolds a complete TypeScript project (strict mode) from a template — it's non-interactive: the project name comes from the command and there are no prompts. The simulator and your board's firmware are fetched by the CLI on first use (kog dev / kog flash), not at scaffold time.

note

The npm packages aren't published yet. Until they ship, npm create kog@latest will 404 — install Kog from the repository (clone it and work in the workspace) for now. This page describes the published flow.

Prefer plain JavaScript? Add --js for a JSX project instead of TSX:

npm create kog@latest my-app -- --js

Everything in Kog — the compiler, CLI, hooks, components, and lint rules — works the same in .jsx/.js files as it does in .tsx. TSX is just the default.

What gets installed

Piece	How it arrives
Compiler, CLI, component library	Ordinary npm packages
Desktop simulator	Prebuilt binary for your OS/arch, downloaded on install
Runtime firmware for your board	Prebuilt image, downloaded on first flash
Serial drivers	None needed for ESP32-S3/C3/C6 boards (native USB). Older CH340/CP210x boards need a one-time OS driver — the CLI detects this and links you.

Checking your setup

npx kog doctor

Verifies Node version, serial access, simulator binary, and (if a board is plugged in) that it can be seen. Every failure comes with the fix spelled out.