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title Building Glass for Windows
description Guide to building Glass for Windows development.

Building Glass for Windows

The commands below can be run from PowerShell or Windows Terminal.

Repository

Clone the Glass repository.

If you are developing Glass together with a local GPUI checkout, clone Glass-HQ/gpui as a sibling repository:

git clone https://github.com/Glass-HQ/Glass.git
git clone https://github.com/Glass-HQ/gpui.git

This yields:

C:\src\Glass-HQ\Glass
C:\src\Glass-HQ\gpui

Dependencies

Install:

  • rustup
  • Visual Studio or Build Tools with the C++ desktop workload
  • Windows 10/11 SDK
  • CMake
  • ninja

If you install only Build Tools, launch Glass from a developer shell so MSVC and SDK environment variables are available.

Recommended bootstrap

Glass includes a Windows bootstrap script that verifies the machine, installs ninja with winget when needed, stages the CEF runtime into a stable dev directory, builds the companion CLI, and launches the app.

From the repo root:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\script\setup-windows-dev.ps1

To build and launch Glass in one step:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\script\setup-windows-dev.ps1 -Run

This is the intended Windows development entry point.

What the script does:

  • verifies cargo and cmake
  • installs ninja for the current user if it is missing
  • uses a sibling ..\gpui checkout automatically when one is present
  • stages the Windows CEF runtime next to the development build so zed.exe can be launched directly
  • builds cli.exe, which Glass expects in the Windows dev layout
  • launches zed.exe directly with the staged dev runtime

Manual local-GPUI build

If you are working with a sibling gpui checkout and want to drive Cargo directly instead of using the bootstrap script, use the PowerShell helper:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\script\cargo-gpui-local.ps1 build -p cli
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\script\cargo-gpui-local.ps1 build -p zed
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\script\cargo-gpui-local.ps1 run -p zed

Building cli first ensures zed.exe can find the companion CLI binary in the expected Windows dev layout.

For day-to-day Windows development, prefer the bootstrap script:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\script\setup-windows-dev.ps1 -Run

Troubleshooting

cmake cannot find Ninja

If a build fails in cef-dll-sys with an error saying CMake cannot find Ninja, install it:

winget install --id Ninja-build.Ninja --scope user --accept-package-agreements --accept-source-agreements --silent

Then open a new shell and re-run the build.

Missing sibling GPUI checkout

If you are using the local GPUI helper or the bootstrap script picks up a sibling checkout automatically, Glass will resolve GPUI crates from ..\gpui. In that case you must either:

  • clone Glass-HQ/gpui next to the Glass checkout, or
  • move back to the pinned GPUI dependency flow once the local GPUI changes are no longer needed

RUSTFLAGS breaks builds

If you set the RUSTFLAGS environment variable, it overrides the rustflags settings in .cargo/config.toml, which Glass needs for Windows builds.

If you need extra Rust flags, prefer adding them in a local .cargo/config.toml instead of exporting RUSTFLAGS.

Path too long

If dependency checkout paths exceed Windows path limits, enable long path support for both Git and Windows:

git config --system core.longpaths true
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem" -Name "LongPathsEnabled" -Value 1 -PropertyType DWORD -Force

Reboot after enabling Windows long paths.

Graphics or launch failures

Glass currently uses the same GPU stack as Zed on Windows. If the app fails to open a window, inspect the log at:

C:\Users\YOU\AppData\Local\Zed\logs\Zed.log

If you see Vulkan or device initialization errors, update GPU drivers first.