A keyboard-first, accessibility-first way to use your entire computer.
Sicompass is a free, open-source way to use your computer entirely from the keyboard, with no mouse needed. Under the hood, every screen is just a tree of lists. Sicompass shows you that structure directly, so you move through it with the arrow keys.
You navigate everything the same way, your files, settings, email, and any other data. It is fast, precise, and predictable, it feels the same everywhere, and it works smoothly with screen readers on Linux, macOS, and Windows. It does not try to look pretty, and that is exactly the point.
Prebuilt packages for Windows, macOS and Linux are on the Releases page. Pick the one for your system below.
Every download is self-contained. Fonts and shaders are compiled into the binary, so there is nothing to install alongside it.
Download sicompass-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.msi from the Releases page and
double-click it. Or install from PowerShell:
powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "irm https://github.com/friendlyflow/sicompass/releases/latest/download/sicompass-installer.ps1 | iex"Keep the powershell ... wrapper. Without it the installer aborts on Windows'
default execution policy and closes your terminal before you can read why.
Either way, press the Windows key and type sicompass to launch it.
Download the disk image for your Mac, aarch64 for Apple Silicon and x86_64
for Intel, then drag sicompass to your Applications folder.
curl -LO https://github.com/friendlyflow/sicompass/releases/latest/download/sicompass-aarch64-apple-darwin.dmgThe disk image bundles MoltenVK, so there is nothing else to install.
The app is not yet notarized by Apple, so macOS refuses to open it the first time and reports that it is damaged. Clear the download quarantine flag once and it starts normally after that.
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/sicompass.appDebian, Ubuntu and Mint:
curl -LO https://github.com/friendlyflow/sicompass/releases/latest/download/sicompass_0.1.9_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./sicompass_0.1.9_amd64.debFedora, RHEL and openSUSE:
curl -LO https://github.com/friendlyflow/sicompass/releases/latest/download/sicompass-0.1.9-1.x86_64.rpm
sudo dnf install ./sicompass-0.1.9-1.x86_64.rpmAny distribution, no root needed:
curl -LO https://github.com/friendlyflow/sicompass/releases/latest/download/sicompass_0.1.9_x86_64.AppImage
chmod +x sicompass_0.1.9_x86_64.AppImage
./sicompass_0.1.9_x86_64.AppImageNix and NixOS:
nix run github:friendlyflow/sicompassOr install just the binary into ~/.local/bin, which also works on macOS:
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/friendlyflow/sicompass/releases/latest/download/sicompass-installer.sh | shYou need a working Vulkan driver, which most desktop distributions already
have. If yours does not, install your vendor's Vulkan package, for example
mesa-vulkan-drivers on Debian and Ubuntu. A screen reader also needs
at-spi2-core running, which the .deb and .rpm pull in for you.
The .deb, .rpm and AppImage handle their own dependencies. The plain
archive and the curl ... | sh installer cannot, so they additionally need
libpng16, zlib and OpenSSL 3 present, which is the normal state of any
desktop Linux. If sicompass exits with a message about a missing shared
library, install those and try again.
The web browser reads pages with a real Chrome or Chromium, which is not
bundled, so install one if you want to use it. Chrome never appears on your
screen. When xvfb is installed it runs as a normal browser on an invisible
display, which is what a website expects to see, and the .deb and .rpm
pull xvfb in for you. Without it Chrome runs headless instead, which a few
sites detect and block. That is the case for the AppImage, the plain archive
and the curl ... | sh installer, so if a page refuses to load there, install
it yourself with sudo apt install xvfb or
sudo dnf install xorg-x11-server-Xvfb.
sicompass --checkThat reports where sicompass found its resources, whether colour emoji can render, and which graphics devices it can see. It is the first thing to run, and to paste into a bug report, if the app does not start.
On Windows the app has no console, so send the report to a file instead:
$env:SICOMPASS_CHECK_FILE="check.txt"; sicompass --check; type check.txtEvery release also ships SHA256SUMS files next to the packages, so you can
verify a download before installing it.
Build from source:
# Optional: use Nix for dependency management
nix develop
# Build
cargo build --release
# Run
cargo run --releaseNix users can also build the packaged version with nix build.
Shaders are compiled by scripts/gen-shaders.sh and committed, so building
needs no shader toolchain. Rerun that script if you change anything under
shaders/, and scripts/gen-icons.sh if you change the icon.
- Unambiguous Focus: You always know where the focus is, no guessing
- Flat Interface: No popups, dialogs, or overlays, everything is navigated inline within the tree
- Keyboard-First: Your hands never leave the keyboard, with tabbed workspaces and letter-driven command palettes
- Native Accessibility: Built-in screen reader support on Linux, macOS, and Windows
- Cross-Platform: Packaged for Windows, macOS, and Linux, with paths, shells, and PTYs routed through platform helpers
- High-Performance Rendering: Vulkan graphics with a FreeType2 glyph atlas
- Extensible: Provider-based plugin system with a built-in store for hot enable/disable
Each provider turns a different data source into the same keyboard-navigable tree: File Browser, Text Editor, Email, Chat, Web Browser, Terminal, Plugin Store, and Settings.
Join the conversation on Discord.
If you are creating an open source application under a license compatible with the GNU GPL license v3, you may use this project under the terms of the GPLv3.
Contributions are welcome! Whether it's code, documentation, or feedback, your input helps make computing more accessible for everyone