Familiar pages. A lean native delivery.
KUI brings HTML/CSS interfaces, native application logic and built-in capabilities together for teams that want control over their desktop runtime, components and delivery.
- Lean runtime & Lua: KUI ships its own HTML/CSS renderer, without Chromium or a system WebView. Keep business logic in the native host, and use optional Lua for interface interactions.
- Built-in virtual components: VirtualList, ListView and TreeView are built in. Instantiate rows for the viewport and overscan, with APIs for selection, tree expansion and dynamic data changes.
- An extensible native core: Add an editor, PDF viewer or 3D through standalone extensions. Register your own elements through a pure C ABI, with styling, events and a defined drawing lifecycle.
- DevTools & automation: Inspect the DOM, computed styles and box model. Edit styles, debug Lua and record performance. Automation APIs and MCP connect a running app to your development tools.
- Built for agent-assisted development: You do not need to learn KUI’s features first. Describe layout, style and actions using HTML/CSS web standards. Your agent can consult the SDK docs, handle integration and inspect the UI and interactions through DevTools/MCP.
Chromium and Node.js
Electron bundles Chromium and Node.js for desktop applications with HTML, CSS and JavaScript interfaces. Projects using Web frontend libraries, browser APIs or Node modules can build around that runtime.
What changes in KUI
Inventory renderer JavaScript, preload methods, IPC messages and main-process system calls. Move interface events to Lua or host listeners and business/system operations to native code. Parsing HTML does not make React/Vue components, Node modules or preload scripts run.
Verify a complete operation
Use a file-backed list: load a file, render rows, change filters, select a record and close the window. Check path encoding, current form values, listener cleanup and deployed resources. Record startup, input response and scrolling frame times using the same data.
Sources and practice
Technical models were checked against official documentation on 2026-11-09. Migration sections are our engineering guidance, without cross-framework benchmark results. Check KUI interfaces, limitations and examples for specific capabilities.
Something unclear?
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