For Vikix 0.72.148.
These pages are for someone who has installed Vikix and wants to know where things are and how to make it their own; the first two are for getting there, from a blank computer to the first hour on the desktop. The main README is the full reference: every key, every package list, every test. These pages are the map.
They are on your machine too, in three forms: as these files in ~/vikix/docs/, as web pages with the diagrams drawn as pictures (Super+m → Vikix guide in the browser), and as an Info manual. Read that with Super+m → Vikix guide (in Emacs if you have it, otherwise in a terminal), C-h i then Vikix in Emacs, or info vikix in a terminal. Super+m → Help → Vikix guide: a page at random opens one of them you didn’t choose.
The Esperanto guides are included too. In Super+m → Help, choose Vikix guide: Esperanto (Emacs or terminal), or Vikix guide: Esperanto in the browser. In Emacs, C-h i lists Vikix Esperanto alongside Vikix; M-x info RET (vikix-eo) RET opens it directly. In a terminal, use info vikix-eo. The HTML pages have English and Esperanto links at the top; the online Esperanto guide is at vikix.dev/guide/eo/. English remains the default. The command reference is generated in English inside both manuals, so command names and syntax stay current.
Every vikix command has a man page as well, and so has each command of a plugin you’ve added: man vikix lists them, man vikix-backup or man inbox is the whole of one, and man -k vikix finds a page by a word. The page The commands, in the table below, is the same in one place. They say what each command’s -h says, since both are made from the same lines.
You’re starting from a blank computer and want it done in one go: the stick, its few questions, the first start (see Installing from Vikix’s stick)
You’re starting from a blank computer: Void’s installer, screen by screen, then Vikix’s (see Installing Void for Vikix)
You want to know what your laptop does on Void’s kernel, before or after installing: reading the hardware report, the ROG Flow Z13 page, what to set after the first login (see Vikix on real machines)
You’ve just logged in: the keys that matter, adding software, a theme, staying current (see Your first hour)
You want to play and edit a Lisp pattern with SuperCollider (see A first musical pattern)
You want to find a file: what Vikix put where, and whose it is (see Where everything is)
You want to know what the base and the features are, what happens between logging in and the desktop, or what vikix update does (see How it fits together)
You want to change something: keys, startup programs, the bar, the theme, the terminal, what’s installed (see Making it yours)
You have more windows than fit side by side: a row wider than the screen that you move along, its keys, the mouse, and how it works (see The strip, a workspace that scrolls)
You want something to happen by itself: a window on its workspace, a program at login, a reminder at a time; or you want to know why a window went where it did (see Rules for the desktop)
You write code or text in Neovim or Emacs: which files are yours, the language servers, AI beside your code (see Neovim and Emacs)
You have Nyxt (the feature lisp-apps): guides opening in it, its colours, your config, Emacs connected to it, commands of your own (see Nyxt, the browser you change in Lisp)
You want a plugin, or one isn’t doing what you expect: each plugin’s keys, settings, files, and what to do when it doesn’t work (see Plugins, one by one)
You take notes: a key from anywhere, sorting the inbox with a model, the agenda and links in Emacs, and the same notes on an Android phone or an iPhone (see Your notes)
You have a text in Markdown and want an EPUB for an e-reader, or a PDF, checked before it leaves (see Books from Markdown)
You want the agent to change something for you, a model on the laptop, llm in a pipe, dictation, to talk with the AI, to ask your notes, or to give the agent the desktop as tools (see Working with AI)
The model you want doesn’t fit the laptop: OpenRouter, a GPU by the hour, serverless, or a box of yours, what each costs and where the text goes, which model fits which card, and the two lines that point Vikix at it (see Your own model in the cloud)
You run several AI agents at once: seeing who is on what, a desk (a workspace and a git worktree) for each, and the house rules when two reach for one file (see Agents at work)
You need a program that only runs on Windows (see Windows in a window)
You want to play games, Windows ones too: one command sets Steam up with everything your graphics card needs, and what to do when a game doesn’t run (see Steam)
You want to discover nearby devices, inspect their ports and connect, with a discovery choice for each network (see The Network Office)
You have a Void machine elsewhere (a VPS, a box at home) and want it to be part of this Vikix: a shell or a command there by name, and whether it is up (see Your other machines, as nodes)
You want to know what a command takes: every vikix command, its forms and the files it keeps, as its -h and its man page say them (see The commands)
The install or the desktop didn’t start, a key or a menu entry is missing, an update failed, you want a report to ask the agent or a person (see When something breaks)
vikix command. It doesn’t replace anything of Void’s.
vikix features lists them, vikix add NAME installs one, vikix remove NAME takes it away again, and vikix update keeps what you chose.
~/vikix, and vikix update replaces them. Your files are copies Vikix made once and never touches again. Change your files, not Vikix’s. Where everything is says which is which.
~/.stumpwm.d/user.lisp is where the desktop is yours. It loads last, so anything in it wins over Vikix’s defaults: keys, startup programs, the terminal, the menu, the bar.
vikix snapshot before a change, vikix changes after it, vikix undo to take it back.
Super+m, Super+/ and Super+F1 are the way in. The welcome that opened at your first login is there too (Super+m → Welcome), and so is Add software, for the languages, editors and the rest. Super+m is the Vikix menu, in sections (Windows, System, Apps ...): Enter opens one, and typing a word finds an entry of any of them, so where these guides say Super+m → Something, typing a word of it gets you there (an entry for a feature you don’t have is left out until you add it); Super+/ shows every key at a glance, and Super+F1 lists them so you can search and run one from there. vikix doctor checks that everything is in place.