Requirements

AZUREAL has a small set of hard requirements and a few optional dependencies that unlock additional features.

Platform Support

Terminal Emulator

AZUREAL requires a modern terminal emulator with true-color and mouse support. For the best experience:

Kitty and Windows Terminal deliver the best overall experience for two reasons:

1. Input protocol support. Kitty provides the Kitty keyboard protocol on macOS and Linux, which allows AZUREAL to distinguish ambiguous key combinations (e.g., Tab vs Ctrl+I, Enter vs Ctrl+M). Windows Terminal provides full ConPTY support with reliable mouse and key reporting.

2. Rendering fidelity. Both terminals produce the cleanest interpretation of AZUREAL’s box-drawing characters (│, ┌, ╔, █, ▓, etc.), Unicode glyphs, and styled borders. Pane separators, tab bars, dialog frames, and half-block splash art all render pixel-perfect with correct line joining and consistent glyph widths.

Other listed terminals work well – the main difference is that terminals without the Kitty keyboard protocol trigger Alt+ fallback bindings for certain shortcuts, and some terminals may show minor visual artifacts in complex border intersections or half-block character rendering. See Platform Differences for details.

The legacy conhost.exe on Windows is not recommended due to limited ANSI support.

Required

Git 2.15+

AZUREAL relies heavily on git worktree commands, which require Git 2.15 or later. Verify your version:

git --version

At Least One Agent CLI

You need at least one of the following agent backends installed. Both can be active simultaneously – AZUREAL derives the backend from whichever model you select.

Claude Code CLI (for Claude models):

# macOS / Linux
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

# Windows (PowerShell)
irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

Codex CLI (for OpenAI models – optional):

npm install -g @openai/codex

Rust (Latest Stable)

Required only if building from source. Install via rustup:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Pre-built binaries do not require Rust.

LLVM/Clang + CMake

Build dependency for whisper-rs, which provides speech-to-text support. Even if you do not plan to use speech input, the crate is compiled as part of the build.

macOS:

Install Xcode Command Line Tools (includes Clang and required headers):

xcode-select --install

CMake, if not already present:

brew install cmake

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu):

sudo apt install libclang-dev cmake

Windows:

winget install LLVM.LLVM Kitware.CMake Ninja-build.Ninja

After installing LLVM on Windows, set the LIBCLANG_PATH environment variable to the LLVM bin directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\LLVM\bin).

The Ninja build system is required because CMake’s default Visual Studio generator uses MSBuild, which prevents CUDA from inheriting the Windows SDK include paths. Set CMAKE_GENERATOR=Ninja in your environment, or build from a VS Developer Command Prompt with Ninja in PATH.

NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit (Windows)

Required on Windows for GPU-accelerated Whisper inference. The Windows build compiles Whisper with CUDA support, so the CUDA Toolkit must be present at build time.

winget install Nvidia.CUDA

Restart your terminal after installation so the CUDA_PATH environment variable is available. The build system reads CUDA_PATH to locate the CUDA libraries automatically.

Note: This requirement applies only to Windows. macOS uses Metal for GPU acceleration (handled automatically), and Linux uses CPU inference.

Optional

Nerd Font

AZUREAL uses Nerd Font glyphs for file tree icons (file type icons, folder icons, git status indicators). When a Nerd Font is not detected, the application falls back to emoji-based icons automatically.

Recommended fonts:

• JetBrainsMono Nerd Font
• FiraCode Nerd Font
• Hack Nerd Font

Configure your terminal emulator to use the installed Nerd Font.

Whisper Model (Speech-to-Text)

To use the built-in speech-to-text feature, download a Whisper model to the expected path:

~/.azureal/speech/ggml-small.en.bin

Models are available from HuggingFace. The ggml-small.en.bin model offers a good balance of accuracy and speed. Larger models (medium, large) improve accuracy at the cost of higher latency and memory usage.

On macOS, Whisper runs on the Metal GPU for faster inference. On Windows, Whisper uses CUDA GPU acceleration (requires NVIDIA GPU + CUDA Toolkit). Linux uses CPU inference.

Quick Checklist

Before proceeding to installation, confirm:

• Git 2.15+ is installed
• At least one agent CLI is installed (Claude Code or Codex)
• LLVM/Clang and CMake are available (if building from source)
• NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit is installed (Windows only, if building from source)
• A Nerd Font is configured in your terminal (recommended)