Install and open your first project

Zero is a desktop application for Windows. Download the installer and run it.

The installer is not one-click on purpose: it asks where to put the application, so you can keep more than one build side by side. It installs for your user account, so it does not need administrator rights.

Nothing else has to be installed. The application ships with everything it needs to run — you only have to supply an API key for the model provider you want to use, which comes later.

In a browser, and on a phone

Zero's window is a web application, so it also runs in a browser against a backend you are already running — including on a phone or tablet on the same network, where the browser's Add to Home Screen installs it as a standalone app with its own icon.

There is deliberately no offline mode: the backend does the work, so it has to be reachable, and pretending otherwise would only fail later and less clearly.

Touch is a supported way of working, not an afterthought: panel splitters drag, two taps on a name renames it, and the image viewer pinches to zoom. The browser's own pinch and double-tap zoom is switched off on purpose so that the Zoom control in Settings is the one mechanism, rather than two that fight.

Two processes, one application

Once running, Zero appears in Task Manager as two entries: ZeroDesktop.exe, the window, and Zero.exe, the part that does the work. That is normal. Distinct names are deliberate — if one of the two ever misbehaves, it is worth being able to tell which.

The launcher

Zero opens on a launcher rather than an empty workspace, because there is nothing to show until a project is open.

Create Project asks for a folder. Pick an empty one, or an existing folder of work you want to bring into Zero — your files are left exactly as they are; Zero adds a hidden .zero/ folder next to them for its own data. The project takes its name from the folder.

Load Project opens a folder that is already a Zero project. Under the path field is your list of recent projects: pick one, or remove entries you are done with. A recent project whose folder has since been moved or deleted is marked as missing rather than silently failing to open.

Each recent project shows as a tile with its picture, or the first letter of its name if it has none. The picture is set in Settings → Project and is stored inside the project, so it is the same on every machine that opens the folder.

The launcher has no title bar of its own. The window buttons appear on a strip when you move the pointer to the top edge.

Only one project is open at a time. Opening another closes the current one, and Close Project in the top-bar menu returns you to this launcher.

Where Zero keeps its own files

The split matters when you back things up or move to a new machine: copying a project folder brings the project, but not your keys — those are set up once per machine.

Next

Connect an LLM provider — until that is done, the chats and the assistant have nothing to talk to.