Kup Cheatsheet

K Framework Installer

All K-related tools are managed through the kup package manager. Below you will find the command to install the K framework, commands available with kup and flags that allow easy switching between different versions.

Install kup

bash <(curl https://kframework.org/install)

kup commands

Command	Description	Example
kup list	List all available packages and their status	kup list
kup install $package	Install or update a $package	kup install kontrol
kup uninstall $package	Uninstall $package	kup uninstall kontrol
kup shell $package	Add $package to the current shell (this is temporary)	kup shell kevm
kup doctor	Check if kup is installed correctly	kup doctor
kup add $package	Add a private package to kup
kup publish	Push a package to a cachix cache (RV developer use)
kup $option --help	Output the description of $option	kup list --help

Installation time: The initial installation of certain packages (e.g., kontrol) may take longer as it needs to fetch all the libraries and compile sources. This process typically takes around 30 mins to 1 hour.

kup packages management

The following flags allow for the installation of different package versions and/or different dependencies versions.

Flag	Usage	Description	Parameters	Example
--version	kup install $package --version $version	Install/update $package with a particular $version	$version: Commit/branch/local checkout/release tag of $package	kup install kontrol --version ~/kontrol
--override	kup install $package --override $dependency $version	Install/update $package with a particular $version of $dependency	$dependency: a dependency of $package $version: commit/branch/local checkout/release tag of $dependency	kup install kontrol --override kevm/k-framework/haskell-backend ~/haskell-backend

Chaining flags

As an example, let's assume we want to use kontrol with the following modifications:

• Use a local checkout of kontrol (for example, after adding a new feature to kontrol).

• Use a haskell-backend branch (for example, some execution improvements have not yet been upstreamed to kontrol).

• Use the Github release v0.1.461 of pyk, which includes a useful new feature.

The line below will allow us to run a version of kontrol with the above modifications:

kup install kontrol --version ./$path_to_local_kevm --override k-framework/haskell-backend $haskell-branch pyk ./$path_to_local_pyk

As you can see, release tags, local checkouts and branches can be used to build a fine tuned version of any of our tools, kontrol being the example here. To know the exact naming of the dependencies that a package has one can use kup list $package --inputs.

Troubleshooting

Making changes to nix.conf (manually or through kup) has no effect.

Nix configuration files can be stored in many different locations. A full treatment can be found in the Nix manual. Check if you have additional Nix config files, for example in $HOME/.config/nix. If $HOME/.config/nix specifies a trusted-users option, this will override whichever trusted-users were set in /etc/nix/nix.conf. Changing the config variable from trusted-users to extra-trusted-users means it will only be appended, not overwritten. You can also explicitly set which files Nix should use as config files using the NIX_USER_CONF_FILES environment variable.

export NIX_USER_CONF_FILES = "/etc/nix/nix.conf"
kup doctor