Installation

If you just want to get a page on screen fast, start with the Quickstart. This page covers the prerequisites, what the scaffold gives you, and why Kovo insists on strict TypeScript.

Prerequisites#

Node.js 24+ — the toolchain targets current Node.
pnpm 10+ — the workspace package manager.
TypeScript, strict — Kovo's correctness guarantees are guarantees about TypeScript programs that stay inside the sound subset. The starter ships strict everything plus lint bans on any, non-null assertions, and as casts in app code. These aren't style preferences: the static checks can only prove things about code that plays by these rules. SPEC §6.6

Scaffold a project#

pnpm create kovo my-app
cd my-app
pnpm install

Pre-v1: not on npm yet. These commands describe the intended flow and work today inside the Kovo repository as workspace packages — clone the repo and work in a workspace member, as the Tutorial does.

The starter is deliberately small: one component, one route's worth of HTML, Tailwind wired through Vite+, and the graph-verification scripts that make the framework's checks part of your CI from day one.

The everyday commands#

Command	What it does
`vp dev`	Dev server with the Kovo compile step
`vp check`	Typecheck + lint — this is where Kovo's static errors surface
`vp test`	Vitest suites
`vp run build`	Production build
`vp run kovo-check`	Framework semantic checks over the emitted app graph
`vp run graph-assertions`	Your app's own behavior assertions, as graph queries

Everything routes through Vite+ (vp) as the single project entrypoint.

If you internalize one command, make it vp check. Kovo pushes application wiring — handler references, form fields, navigation targets, data-binding paths — into the type system and the compiler, so the error you would otherwise find by clicking around in a browser shows up here instead, with a teaching message that cites the spec section it enforces.

Where to go next#

The mental model — what Kovo compiles your components into, and why the output is meant to be read.
The Tutorial — build a working e-commerce app step by step.