Installation

Pick whichever fits how you want to run it. All four play the same game; they differ in how much setup they need and where the AI runs.

Option 1 — Web, bring your own key

No install at all. Open the hosted client, drop your Anthropic / OpenAI / Gemini key (or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint) into Settings, and play.

This is the fastest way to try Aikami. Your key stays in your browser and requests go straight to the provider — see Choosing your AI setup for what that costs.

Option 2 — Desktop app

Native, Rust-powered, small bundle. Grab a prebuilt release from GitHub Releases, or build from source:

bun install
bun tauri build

Works with a local Ollama/vLLM instance or your own cloud keys. Available for Windows (.exe), macOS (universal .dmg), and Linux (AppImage).

The AppImage needs glibc 2.35+ and libfuse2 to mount. Newer distros (Ubuntu 22.04+, Fedora 36+, Debian 12) ship libfuse3 and need libfuse2 installed separately:

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install libfuse2

# Fedora
sudo dnf install fuse-libs

Option 3 — Docker (fully local, zero cloud)

Everything runs on your own hardware — no internet required after the first pull.

git clone https://github.com/BearlySleeping/aikami
cd aikami

# Everything local: client + ComfyUI (image) + Kokoro (voice) + Ollama (text)
docker compose up aikami

# ...or just the client, if you're bringing your own endpoints / API keys
docker compose up aikami-client

Open http://localhost:5173 and you’re playing.

The full stack expects a GPU — text generation via Ollama is the demanding part, image generation via ComfyUI more so. The aikami-client variant has no such requirement since you supply the endpoints.

Option 4 — From source

For contributors, or anyone who wants to modify the engine.

git clone https://github.com/BearlySleeping/aikami
cd aikami

bun run setup       # local machine setup (checks bun, jdk, chromium, ...)
bun run setup:env   # generate .env.emulator files (no GCP access needed)
bun run dev         # client dev server
bun run dev:all     # client + Firebase emulators

Aikami is a Bun + Moon monorepo. See Coding Standards before opening a PR.

What gets stored where

However you install it, campaigns, saves, and chat history live in a local Turso (libSQL) database on your machine — that’s the source of truth, not a server-side copy. Firebase (auth and optional cloud sync) layers on top and is never a boot dependency: the game plays and saves fine without ever signing in.