Free for Windows 10 & 11

Keep it Ticking

Hassle-free awake modes that keep your PC, Apps & AI ticking.

KiT is a quiet Windows companion that keeps your session awake (Light) or darkens the desktop without sleeping the PC (Night), with wakeable screensaver faces; Off returns ordinary Windows.

One program. Entirely local. No accounts. No telemetry. No theater (except the screensavers).

Download KIT-Setup.exevlatest · 23 MB Portable KIT.exe22 MB

Installer or portable, no admin neededSHA-256 beside every fileRelease notes

No account
No telemetry
No cloud
No fake input
Single instance
Free to use

Cosmos face: a gravity well at the centre, a second event hole drifting past a sun, moon, two planets, a kitten and a UFO, Kit Commander cruising through, and a star mid-supernova, with the Light, Night, Off and KiT marks among them

Real captures of the app's own face and control bar. Nothing mocked up.

Three modes

One gesture each. No schedules. No idle. No hassle.

The bar shows exactly one thing: which mode you are in. Click a segment, press a chord, or leave it to the tray.

Light

The PC and display stay awake. Quiet and ready.

Ctrl + Shift + D · Default mode

Night

Wakeable dark — Screen darkens, the machine stays working. A touch of activity brings you back.

Ctrl + Shift + K · Auto-wakes on mouse or keyboard activity

Off

Regular old sleepy Windows again.

Hold either chord for about two seconds

The Instrument

There when you want it, gone when you don't.

A low-profile bar sits just above the taskbar — there when you want it, gone when you don't. Double-click the tray icon to show or hide it. Right-click the tray for settings, Ghost, Hold Night, Auto after idle, and the Night faces.

The KiT tray right-click menu, every toggle at its off-by-default state, with Monitor brightness open showing the For monitors with DDC/analog controls label and its 0-100 step-5 choices — Right-click the tray. Monitor brightness open — a DDC/analog convenience, off by default, that does nothing on a display without it.

Toggles & keybinds

Ctrl + Shift + DLight · Default mode
Ctrl + Shift + KNight · Auto-wakes on mouse/keyboard activity
Hold eitherOff · keep the chord down for about two seconds
Triple-tap eitherFlip to the opposite mode (Light → Night, Night → Light)
Esc or SpaceLeaves Night Hold

Chords only. KiT registers the shortcuts with Windows and never reads what you type.

Optional, all off by default

Ghost
Transparent, click-through Control Bar. The instrument stays visible without ever being in the way.
Hold Night
Stay dark until you say otherwise. Esc or Space leaves Night Hold.
Auto after idle
From Off or Light, enter Light or Night after 1–30 quiet minutes.
Night brightness
Choose how deep Night goes, from a soft dim to fully dark, for Windows and, where the monitor allows it, the panel itself.
Monitor brightness
A convenience for displays with DDC/analog brightness controls — set the panel's own brightness from the tray instead of reaching for its buttons. Displays without DDC (most laptop panels) are unaffected.
Run at sign-in
Start with Windows, per user, no service and no scheduled task. Remembers how you left it.
Updates only when you ask
Tray → Check for updates… refreshes the copy you are already running, straight from GitHub Releases. Nothing else touches the network.

Night faces

Built to feel alive, not busy.

Night screensavers/faces: Cosmos/Kit Commander, DVD, Snake, Orbit — or quiet Off. Burn-safe motion. Pick one from the tray, or let Random choose. A touch of activity ends the show unless you asked it to hold.

Cosmos face: the home gravity well, a second drifting event hole, a sun and a ringed planet, with Kit Commander flying past — **Cosmos / Kit Commander**Every body Cosmos can make — suns, moons, planets, kittens, a second event hole — with Kit Commander flying escort.

DVD face: the KiT mark in its night colours beside a brass ring blooming out of the screen corner, with a corner tally — **DVD**A new face off every wall. Corners ring out, and get counted.

Snake face: the Off, Night, Light and KiT marks in a bending train with a faint dotted wake behind them — **Snake**A train that leans through one long turn, leaving a wake to fade behind it.

Orbit face: four labelled marks, each on its own dashed brass ring, with tick marks around the rim — **Orbit**Four marks on four rings of a brass dial, the outer ones slower. They meet at the hub, then scatter.

Trust

Quiet. Efficient. Under your control.

No account. No cloud dashboard. No “engagement.” Trust is earned by staying small and saying no.

What it does

Holds the session awake in Light and Night
In Night, clears the desk and darkens the display; a touch of activity — or Escape — can return you, unless you choose Hold Night
Offers global hotkeys for Light, Night, Off, and flip — chords only, never a record of what you type
Draws its Night faces and control bar locally
Checks for updates only when you choose Check for updates…
Runs as a single instance

What it never does

Record keystrokes or clipboard
Fake mouse or keyboard input
Store, send, or type credentials
Call home, collect telemetry, or open the network except that opt-in update path
Demand administrator rights for ordinary use

Official source

Prefer the latest release. Each file has a matching SHA-256 digest on the release page. The program carries ordinary product identity — name, version, publisher.

First run on a new PC

Windows may look once at a new publisher. That is ordinary, not a verdict. If a locked-down PC refuses to run it, that is publisher policy, not a corrupt file.

The full account

How it earns trust, in MK's own words: TRUST.md in the public repo. Free to use, under a EULA.

Get KiT

Two launches. One program.

Both live on the latest release. Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. Nothing else to install. Current release vlatest.

Installer · recommended

KIT-Setup.exe

Start menu, repair, uninstall · 23 MB

Download KIT-Setup.exe and run it.
Next → Finish. No administrator prompt for ordinary use.
Open KIT from Start. It lives in the tray and above the taskbar.

Run Setup again to repair. Remove it from Settings → Apps.

Download installer SHA-256

Portable

KIT.exe

No install — run from any folder · 22 MB

Download KIT.exe to any folder you like.
Double-click. That is the whole install.
Delete the file to remove it.

Preferences live quietly with your other app data — not beside the portable.

Download portable SHA-256

Scoop Available now

scoop bucket add kid https://github.com/SPRIC76/KIT
scoop install kid

Later: scoop update kid.

winget Community review in progress

winget install --id SPRIC76.KIT -e

The manifest is under review in microsoft/winget-pkgs. The command works the moment it lands; until then, use the installer above.

Verify what you downloaded

In PowerShell (SHA-256 is the default), compare the digest with the .sha256 file beside each download on the release page.

Get-FileHash .\KIT-Setup.exe

Updates

Tray → Check for updates… refreshes the copy you are already running. Setup remains the path for first install, repair, and uninstall. Atom feed for release notes.

Requirements

Windows 10 (version 1809 or later) or Windows 11, 64-bit. No runtime to install, no account to create. More paths in Download.

FAQ

Short answers.

Is it really free?

Yes. KiT is free to download and run, with no account, no tier, and nothing to unlock. It's closed-source freeware, not open source — see the license for what that means.

Does KiT move my mouse or press keys to stay awake?

No. It asks Windows to keep the session and display awake through the ordinary power request, and it never fakes mouse or keyboard input. Nothing you type is read.

What is the difference between Night and turning the monitor off?

Night keeps the machine working while the desk goes dark, so downloads, renders, and long-running jobs finish. A touch of activity brings you straight back; Hold Night keeps it dark until you say otherwise.

Does it need administrator rights?

No. The installer is current-user scope and the portable runs from any folder. KiT never demands administrator rights for ordinary use.

Windows SmartScreen showed a warning. Is the file bad?

Windows may look once at a new publisher. That is ordinary, not a verdict. Check the SHA-256 digest beside the download if you want certainty. If a locked-down PC refuses to run it, that is publisher policy, not a corrupt file.

Where do settings live, and how do I remove everything?

Preferences sit in %LOCALAPPDATA%\KiT. Uninstall from Settings → Apps, or delete the portable file. Delete that folder if you want a truly clean slate.

Does it work with more than one monitor?

Yes. Night covers the whole desk, every attached display, and the faces size themselves to the monitor they are shown on.

How do updates work?

Only when you ask. Tray → Check for updates… looks at GitHub Releases, and if there is a newer build it replaces the copy you are running. There is no background checker.

Which platforms?

Windows 10 and 11 today. Other platforms are being explored; the aim is the same quiet instrument everywhere.

Release notes

Follow the ticking.

Every release ships with notes and SHA-256 digests on GitHub. Watch the repository, or subscribe to the release feed in any reader.

Releases on GitHub Atom feed

Found something?

Bugs, ideas, and odd monitors welcome: open an issue.