Platforms and requirements

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Requirements

Node.js 22 or newer. Node sets the operating-system floor, not Reika:

OS	Minimum
macOS	11 (Big Sur)
Linux	glibc 2.28 or newer — most distributions from 2018 on
Windows	10, through WSL (see Windows)

Reika itself is light: it is a terminal UI that sends requests to a model server, so its own CPU and memory use is small next to the model's. What a machine needs to run a model is the model server's question, not Reika's.

Running on a weak machine

Because Reika only talks to an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, the model does not have to run on the machine Reika runs on. An old laptop can run Reika against:

• a model server on a stronger machine on the same network (llama.cpp, Ollama, vLLM, LM Studio — anything that serves /v1/chat/completions)
• a hosted API

Point REIKA_BASE_URL at it (see Configuration). Everything Reika does locally — reading and editing files, running commands, the context bookkeeping — stays on the machine you are sitting at, and only the requests cross the network.

What differs by platform

Everything outside this table works the same everywhere.

Feature	macOS	Linux	Windows (WSL)
Command sandbox (REIKA_SANDBOX)	on by default	not available — commands run unconfined	not available — commands run unconfined
Web search through Chrome	on when Chrome is found	off by default, REIKA_CDP_SEARCH=1	off by default, REIKA_CDP_SEARCH=1
Pasting an image from the clipboard (ctrl-v)	yes	no	no
Images attached by path (@shot.png)	yes (system OCR by default)	with REIKA_VISION_MODEL or REIKA_VISION=native	with REIKA_VISION_MODEL or REIKA_VISION=native

Sandbox. It uses macOS's own sandbox-exec. On Linux the tool that would do the same job cannot let a sandboxed command reach a model server on the same machine, so there is no sandbox there yet. Approval prompts work the same everywhere, so under the default REIKA_AUTO_APPROVE=safe a dangerous command still asks first. See REIKA_SANDBOX in Configuration.

Chrome search. Off macOS, starting Chrome opens a visible window that takes focus, so it waits for you to opt in. Reika looks for Chrome or Chromium in the usual install paths; REIKA_CHROME_PATH points it at another binary.

Images. Reika reads the clipboard itself, and only has a reader for macOS and Windows; WSL counts as Linux. An image attached by path works everywhere, as long as something can read it: the built-in OCR ships for macOS only among these, and on Linux the image needs REIKA_VISION_MODEL (a vision model describes it as text) or REIKA_VISION=native (for a main model that can see images). See Configuration.

Windows

Run Reika inside WSL. The bash tool runs commands through /bin/sh, and it stops a command that hangs by signalling its whole process group — both Unix mechanisms, so running Reika directly on Windows is not supported.

Terminals

Any terminal that runs a full-screen program works. A few things to know on older or unusual ones:

• Colors step down on their own to what the terminal reports. An ssh session can inherit COLORTERM or TERM_PROGRAM from the machine you connected from, which makes it claim more colors than it has. FORCE_COLOR=1 pins it to 16. At 16 colors Reika switches to a palette of named colors, since its usual pastels would nearly all turn white.
• Glyphs. The Linux console's fonts lack some of the symbols Reika draws (the tool-call dot, the braille spinner, rounded box corners). Under TERM=linux or vt* it draws simpler ones those fonts carry instead. REIKA_BASIC_GLYPHS=1 forces that for a terminal it doesn't detect, such as an old Windows console font, and 0 turns it off (see Configuration).
• Flicker. Reika asks the terminal to draw each frame at once. A terminal that does not support that ignores the request; if one misbehaves instead, REIKA_SYNC_OUTPUT=0 turns it off.
• No terminal at all. For scripts, CI and pipes, use headless mode (reika -p, see Usage).