Help

Installing

Every file is on the latest release page. Kern is free, and there is no account to create.

Windows

Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit. Download Kern_…_x64-setup.exe and open it. It installs for your user account only, so no administrator rights are needed.

Windows may show "Windows protected your PC", because the installer isn't code-signed yet. Click More info → Run anyway. On a managed machine, use Kern_…_x64_en-US.msi instead.

Linux

Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, Fedora 35 or newer, 64-bit.

Kern then appears in your app launcher as Kern. macOS isn't packaged yet.

Getting started

The first time you open Kern, a short welcome helps you set things up. After that these shortcuts cover most of what you'll do:

To capture a task while you're in another app, turn on System-wide quick capture in Settings → General.

Kern Lite is a tiny, distraction-free task list over the same data. Open it from the Kern Lite shortcut, the tray, the sidebar or Ctrl+K. Settings → General decides whether Kern starts as Kern, as Kern Lite, or asks.

Updating

When a new version is out, an Update available card appears in the sidebar. Click it, download the new installer and run it over the old one. Your data is kept, and Kern backs it up automatically before upgrading.

The update check is one of the optional online features, so it stops if you turn those off — see below. Settings → About shows the version you're on.

Where your data lives

Everything is in one folder on your computer:

• Deleted items go to Trash first, so you can restore them.
• Passwords and API keys are kept in your system's secure storage (Windows Credential Manager, or GNOME Keyring / KWallet on Linux), never in Kern's own files.
• To run a second, separate copy of Kern — for testing, say — start it with KERN_DATA_DIR set to a different folder.

Backups and export

Kern backs itself up automatically, and takes a backup before an upgrade. Separately, Settings can export everything to ordinary files — JSON, Markdown and CSV — whenever you like.

Nothing here locks your work in: the export is readable without Kern, and the data folder can be copied like any other folder.

Turning off everything online

Kern works fully offline. The few features that reach the internet — link previews, GitHub, AI and the update check — are each optional, and Settings → Privacy has a single switch that turns all of them off at once.

There is no analytics, telemetry or advertising, and no account is needed unless you choose Kern Cloud. The privacy policy says what Kern Cloud stores if you do.

Kern Cloud

Kern Cloud is the optional online half: an account, a personal space synced between your devices, and shared workspaces. It's free, and nothing uses it until you turn it on from the space menu at the top of the sidebar, or Settings → Account & Cloud.

Signing in is an email address and a password, with a one-time code emailed to verify the address. You can also sign in with a code instead of a password, and reset a forgotten one the same way.

• Personal space. Your own projects, tasks, boards, notes and whiteboards, synced to every computer you sign in on. You can copy your offline data into it.
• Workspaces. Shared spaces for a team: a name, a logo, a few details, optionally a GitHub organisation (each repository becomes a project), and people invited by email. Changes appear for everyone within moments, and whiteboards are multiplayer with live cursors.
• Offline. Still there, exactly as it was. Switch between Offline, Personal and your workspaces from the space menu.

Everyone in a workspace holds one of four roles:

Accepting an invitation needs a verified email address matching the one invited, so an invitation can't simply be passed to somebody else.

What syncs

Only the core things: projects and project groups, boards and columns, tasks, labels, milestones, notes, inbox items, whiteboards and their contents, linked repositories and issue links.

Files, folders, code, terminals, environment variables, settings and AI keys always stay on your computer. This isn't a setting — the server refuses anything else. Images on whiteboards are shared as compressed copies; the originals stay with you. A workspace project shows its files only on computers where you've linked the folder yourself.

Each space you open keeps a full local copy, so Kern works with no connection and catches up afterwards. Two people editing different fields of the same task both keep their edit; for the same field, the last writer wins. A deleted record stays deleted.

Sharing and calendars

Share links

You can publish a read-only snapshot of a note, a whiteboard or a project as a link anyone can open — no account needed. One live link per item; publishing again updates it. Links can be given an expiry and can be turned off at any time. The pages run no scripts and aren't indexed by search engines.

Calendar feeds

Each space can give you a private calendar address (.ics) to subscribe to from Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or anything else. It holds your open tasks with due dates and the space's milestones, rebuilt each time your calendar fetches it. Rotating the address, or leaving the space, stops the old one working.

Treat the address like a password: anyone holding it can read that calendar.

Streams

A stream is an address your website or services send to, so a "Report a bug" button, a feedback form, a webhook or a failing CI job drops work straight into a space. Each submission becomes a task, an inbox item or a GitHub issue.

Owners and admins open them from the space menu → Streams…. A stream can also have a private email address, so forwarding a message to it files the message.

The streams documentation covers all of it in detail.

Your own server

You don't have to use the public Kern Cloud. The server is open source, and running it yourself gives you the same features with nobody else holding the data.

In Kern: Settings → Account & Cloud → Kern server → Add…. Type the address; Kern asks the server what it is and shows you its name before saving anything. Your account on your own server is separate from every other Kern server, so it asks you to sign in there.

Where Kern will send your session, and where it won't:

See self-hosting for installing and running one.

Common problems

Linux: the window is blank or white

Kern already avoids the most common cause. If it still happens, start it from a terminal with:

WEBKIT_DISABLE_COMPOSITING_MODE=1 kern

Linux: no tray icon on GNOME

GNOME hides tray icons unless the AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support extension is installed. You only need the tray if you've set Kern to keep running in the background (Settings → General).

Windows blocked the installer

More info → Run anyway. The installer isn't code-signed yet, which is all that warning means.

I never got my verification code

Check the spam folder first; you can ask for a new code from the sign-in screen. On a self-hosted server with no mail set up, codes are written to the server log instead of sent — the administrator can read them there, or verify the account directly.

My changes aren't appearing on my other computer

Check both are signed in to the same account and have the same space open — Offline and Personal are different spaces, and work in Offline never syncs. If one has no connection, it catches up when it gets one.

Sync works, but I never see other people's cursors or live edits

That's the realtime connection rather than sync. On the public Kern Cloud it's usually a network that blocks WebSockets. On a self-hosted server it is nearly always a reverse proxy not passing Upgrade and Connection — see putting TLS in front of it.

I was signed out on my own

A session ends when it expires or is revoked — from Settings → Account & Cloud, on another device, or by a self-hosted server's administrator. Signing in again is enough; nothing local is lost.

I deleted something by accident

Look in Trash first. Failing that, there are the automatic backups and any export you've taken.

Still stuck

Open an issue describing what happened, what you expected, and the version from Settings → About. Ideas and feature requests are welcome in the same place.