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Installation

Xenocept is a desktop application. It runs as a singleton background process with an icon in the system tray and a global hotkey that summons its annotation overlay.

Prerequisites

Pre-built binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows are coming soon. Until then, building from source is the supported install path.

Linux (Ubuntu / Debian)

These system libraries are required to compile and run Xenocept:

# Tauri / GTK / WebKit
sudo apt-get install -y \
  libgtk-3-dev \
  libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev \
  libjavascriptcoregtk-4.1-dev \
  libsoup-3.0-dev \
  libglib2.0-dev \
  libcairo2-dev \
  libpango1.0-dev \
  libatk1.0-dev \
  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev

# Screen capture (xcap crate — PipeWire/Wayland headers needed even on X11)
sudo apt-get install -y \
  libpipewire-0.3-dev \
  libgbm-dev

# Bindgen (FFI bindings)
sudo apt-get install -y \
  libclang-dev

# rsync (shared web components sync)
sudo apt-get install -y \
  rsync

You’ll also need a Rust toolchain (the project pins the edition; rustup will pick up the project’s pinned channel automatically):

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

macOS

A Rust toolchain via rustup plus Xcode command-line tools is enough. Screen capture goes through the xcap crate, which uses whichever native macOS capture API is appropriate for the system version.

xcode-select --install
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Windows

Install rustup for Windows plus the Visual Studio Build Tools (the C++ workload, including the MSVC toolchain and the Windows 10/11 SDK).

Build & Run

Clone the repository, then:

cargo build
cargo run

The first build pulls a fair number of crates; expect a few minutes the first time and seconds on incremental rebuilds.

When Xenocept starts, it:

  1. Spawns an HTTP server on http://127.0.0.1:9500 (hardcoded — the GUI and external consumers both reach Xenocept through this port). See HTTP Delivery and MCP.
  2. Opens its Tauri window.
  3. Registers the global hotkey (default Ctrl+Backquote).
  4. Drops into the system tray.

Closing the window does not exit — the app stays alive in the tray so the hotkey keeps working. The tray icon’s double-click action opens the main window back up.

Verifying the Install

After launching:

  1. Hover over the system tray. You should see the Xenocept icon.
  2. Press the hotkey (Ctrl+Backquote by default). A fresh screenshot of the monitor under your cursor is taken and the annotation overlay appears.
  3. Press the hotkey again (or Esc) to hide the overlay.

If anything goes wrong, see Troubleshooting.

Where to Next