Windows
DevKit runs on Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit). Download it from getdevkit.app and run the installer; it installs for your user account. The installer isn’t signed yet, so the first time Windows shows Windows protected your PC: choose More info, then Run anyway.
Some things will differ: PHP comes from the official Windows builds, and Garnet replaces Valkey as the Redis-compatible service. DevKit starts with Windows from your user account, with no Windows service.
PHP on Windows is downloaded from windows.php.net and checked against the checksum published there. Windows has no php-fpm, so each PHP version runs four php-cgi workers on 127.0.0.1, and each worker is replaced after 500 requests. Xdebug uses the matching DLL from xdebug.org rather than being built on your computer. In the terminal, php and composer are small .cmd files in DevKit’s bin folder that run devkit php and devkit composer.
What setup changes
Section titled “What setup changes”Setup makes two changes, and Settings › Remove › Remove system changes… undoes both.
| Change | How it’s made | Asks for |
|---|---|---|
One name resolution rule that sends .test lookups to 127.0.0.1, with the comment DevKit |
A PowerShell script DevKit writes to its generated folder and runs once with administrator rights |
Windows’s administrator prompt |
DevKit Local CA in your user’s trusted root certificates, limited to .test |
certutil -user -addstore Root, run as you |
Windows’s certificate security warning |
Nothing else runs as administrator. DevKit’s DNS server listens on 127.0.0.1:53, because the name resolution rule can’t name another port. If another program holds port 53, 80 or 443, setup names it and its process id; quit that program and run setup again. DevKit never stops it for you.
Your terminal
Section titled “Your terminal”Settings › Terminal adds DevKit’s bin folder to the front of your user Path, so new terminal windows run DevKit’s php, composer and devkit. Turning it off removes that one entry; every other entry stays as it was. A PHP in the system Path still comes first, because Windows reads the system Path before yours.
Undo it by hand
Section titled “Undo it by hand”If DevKit is already gone, you can remove its changes yourself. In PowerShell run as administrator:
Get-DnsClientNrptRule | Where-Object Comment -eq DevKit | Remove-DnsClientNrptRule -ForceThen, in a normal PowerShell window:
certutil -user -delstore Root "DevKit Local CA"Remove DevKit’s bin folder from your user Path in Settings › System › About › Advanced system settings › Environment Variables if you turned the terminal option on.