Install Chan
Chan Desktop, the native app, sets up the chan and cs symlinks in ~/.local/bin so you can drive Chan from the command line.
Chan Desktop recommended
The native app for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
macOS Apple Silicon
Windows x64
Standalone CLI (headless)
Install the headless version for running devservers. Use the shell installer:
$curl -fsSL https://chan.app/install.sh | sh
Or use packages and archives:
macOS Apple Silicon
Windows x64
Ubuntu & Fedora repositories
Prefer distro packages? Chan ships from a Launchpad PPA and a Fedora COPR, so installs and updates ride apt and dnf instead of the AppImage or static binaries. chan-desktop is the app and also provides the chan and cs commands; install plain chan for headless machines: one or the other, not both.
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS & 26.04 LTS, amd64 + aarch64
$sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fiorix/chan
sudo apt install chan-desktop # or: chan
Fedora current releases + rawhide, amd64 + aarch64
$sudo dnf copr enable fiorix/chan
sudo dnf install chan-desktop # or: chan
After install
$chan open ~/my-project
Chan Gateway self-hosting
You don't need this to use Chan. The gateway is the self-hosted tunnel that fronts remote workspaces; install it only if you run your own.
Docker images
You can use the fiorix/chan image for the headless devserver:
$docker run -p 127.0.0.1:8787:8787 \
-e CHAN_HOME=/data/chan \
-v ~/.chan-docker:/data/chan \
-v ~/projects:/workspaces \
fiorix/chan devserver --bind 0.0.0.0 --port 8787
All other chan-gateway images can also be found here: Docker Hub / fiorix.
All packages
Every desktop, CLI, and gateway artifact for each release is published on the GitHub releases page, with checksums and release notes.