The Kite processes

There are a number of processes that need to run in order for Kite to function properly.

macOS

Kite Engine

This is the main Kite process. It is responsible for performing all the code analysis and also manages displaying the menubar icon.

Kite

This is the Copilot UI that ships with Kite. It will not work unless the Kite Engine is running. You can exit out of the Copilot any time and reopen it using the menu bar icon.

Kite Helper

This is a process that runs only at startup to ensure that Kite is updated.

Windows

kited.exe

This is the main Kite process. It is responsible for performing all the code analysis and also manages displaying the menubar (system tray) icon.

Kite.exe

This is the Copilot UI that ships with Kite. It will not work unless kited.exe is running. You can exit out of the Copilot any time and reopen it using the system tray icon.

Note: The Copilot is powered by Electron, which spawns multiple processes. That is why there are multiple processes with this name.

KiteService.exe

This is a process that ensures that Kite is updated.

Linux

kited (~/.local/share/kite/kited)

This is the main Kite process. It is responsible for performing all the code analysis.

kite (~/.local/share/kite/current/linux-unpacked/kite)

This is the Copilot UI that ships with Kite. It will not work unless kited is running. kited will manage launching this when necessary.

Note: The Copilot is powered by Electron, which spawns multiple processes. That is why there are multiple processes with this name.

kite-updater.service

This is a service that is registered with systemd that ensures that Kite is updated.