Kakoune handles editing. Kasane rebuilds the rendering pipeline — terminal or GPU — and opens the full UI to extension: splits, image display, workspace persistence, and beyond. Extend it yourself with sandboxed WASM plugins — a complete one fits in 15 lines of Rust. Your kakrc works unchanged.
GPU backend (--ui gui) — fuzzy finder, pane splits, and color preview are all WASM plugins
Getting Started · What's Different · Plugin Development · Vision
alias kak=kasane and these improvements apply automatically:
- Flicker-free rendering — no more tearing on redraws
- Multi-pane without tmux — native splits with per-pane status bars
- Clipboard that just works — Wayland, X11, macOS, SSH — no xclip needed
- Correct Unicode — CJK and emoji display correctly regardless of terminal
Add --ui gui for a GPU backend with system font rendering,
smooth animations, and inline image display.
Existing Kakoune plugins (kak-lsp, …) work as before. See What's Different for the full list.
Note
Requires Kakoune 2024.12.09 or later. Binary packages skip the Rust toolchain requirement.
Arch Linux: yay -S kasane-bin
· macOS: brew install Yus314/kasane/kasane
· Nix: nix run github:Yus314/kasane
· From source: cargo install --path kasane
kasane file.txt # your Kakoune config works unchanged
alias kak=kasane # add to .bashrc / .zshrcGPU backend: cargo install --path kasane --features gui, then
kasane --ui gui.
See Getting Started for detailed setup.
Plugins can add floating overlays, line annotations, virtual text, code folding, gutter decorations, input handling, scroll policies, and more. Bundled example plugins you can try today:
Each plugin builds into a single .kpk package — sandboxed, composable,
and ready to install. A complete plugin in 15 lines — here is sel-badge in its
entirety:
kasane_plugin_sdk::define_plugin! {
manifest: "kasane-plugin.toml",
state {
#[bind(host_state::get_cursor_count(), on: dirty::BUFFER)]
cursor_count: u32 = 0,
},
slots {
STATUS_RIGHT(dirty::BUFFER) => |_ctx| {
(state.cursor_count > 1).then(|| {
auto_contribution(text(&format!(" {} sel ", state.cursor_count), default_face()))
})
},
},
}Start writing your own:
kasane plugin new my-plugin # scaffold from 6 templates
kasane plugin dev # hot-reload while you editSee Plugin Development and Plugin API.
Kasane is stable as a Kakoune frontend — ready for daily use. The plugin API is evolving; see Plugin Development for the current ABI version and migration guides.
kasane [options] [kak-options] [file]... [+<line>[:<col>]|+:]
All Kakoune arguments work — kasane passes them through to kak.
kasane file.txt # Edit a file
kasane -c project # Connect to existing session
kasane -s myses file.txt # Named session
kasane --ui gui file.txt # GPU backend
kasane -l # List sessions (delegates to kak)See docs/config.md for configuration.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and guidelines.
cargo test # Run all tests
cargo clippy -- -D warnings # Lint
cargo fmt --check # Format checkMIT OR Apache-2.0