kitty

Installs the kitty terminal emulator on Linux using the official installer, and links its configuration from your dotfiles on Linux and macOS.

• Linux: installs kitty and links the config.
• macOS: only links the config. kitty itself is installed with Homebrew by a separate role, which should run before this one.
• Other systems: the role does nothing.

What it does

1. Installs runtime libraries with apt (Debian/Ubuntu): curl, libgl1, libegl1, libxkbcommon-x11-0.
2. Runs the official installer, which unpacks kitty to ~/.local/kitty.app. It runs only when kitty is missing, or on every play when kitty_upgrade is true.
3. Symlinks kitty and kitten into ~/.local/bin.
4. Copies kitty.desktop and kitty-open.desktop into ~/.local/share/applications and rewrites their Icon= and Exec= lines to absolute paths.
5. Symlinks ~/.config/kitty to ~/.dotfiles/kitty. A real directory already at that path is moved to ~/.config/kitty.pre-ansible.

Steps 1 to 4 are Linux only; step 5 also runs on macOS. Everything is per user, so only the apt step uses become.

Requirements

• Ansible 2.12 or newer.
• A Debian-family distro for the apt step (other distros skip it; install the libraries yourself).
• OpenGL 3.3 or newer. Under WSL2 this needs WSLg (Windows 11, or a recent Windows 10 with wsl --update).
• The dotfiles repo checked out at ~/.dotfiles before the config step runs, or the role fails with a clear message.

Variables

Variable	Default	Purpose
kitty_install_dir	~/.local	Parent of kitty.app
kitty_app_dir	{{ kitty_install_dir }}/kitty.app	Install location
kitty_bin_dir	~/.local/bin	Where the kitty and kitten symlinks go
kitty_applications_dir	~/.local/share/applications	Where the desktop entries go
kitty_upgrade	false	Re-run the installer every play to get the latest release
kitty_installer_url	https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/installer.sh	Installer source
kitty_apt_packages	see defaults/main.yml	Runtime libraries for Debian/Ubuntu
kitty_config_wire	true	Set to false to skip the config symlink on Linux and macOS (for example if stow or chezmoi manages it)
kitty_config_src	~/.dotfiles/kitty	Kitty config directory inside your dotfiles
kitty_config_dest	~/.config/kitty	Where kitty looks for its config

Example

- hosts: workstations
  roles:
    - role: kitty
      vars:
        kitty_upgrade: false

Run it against a host with --check --diff first to preview the changes.

Notes

• Upgrades: set kitty_upgrade: true and run the play. The installer replaces kitty.app in place. Existing desktop entries are not overwritten.
• PATH: ~/.local/bin must be on your PATH. If it isn't in fish, run fish_add_path ~/.local/bin.
• WSL2: if kitty fails to start under WSLg, add linux_display_server x11 to the kitty config in your dotfiles. The role does not set this, because it would edit your repo.
• Not tested: the role was written without a live Ansible run. Check it on one host before rolling it out.

Layout

kitty/
├── defaults/main.yml   variables
├── meta/main.yml       role metadata
└── tasks/
    ├── main.yml        OS guards, includes the two files below
    ├── install.yml     Linux only: libraries, installer, symlinks, desktop entries
    └── config.yml      Linux and macOS: dotfiles symlink