First-run setup

The setup wizard runs once, on first boot. It collects the minimum kino needs to start working: where your media lives, a TMDB token for metadata, your preferred languages, and at least one indexer to search.

Every choice is stored in kino’s config and can be changed later in Settings.

Step 1: Storage

Two paths to set:

• Media library path — the root directory kino organises and serves from. Imported releases land here under Movies/Title (Year)/... and Shows/Title/Season 01/... by default; the layout is configurable in Settings → Storage later.
• Download path — staging directory for in-progress downloads. kino moves (or hardlinks; see below) finished files from here into the library.

Tip

Put the download path on the same filesystem as the library — kino can then hardlink imported files instead of copying, which takes microseconds and uses zero extra disk space. If they’re on different filesystems, kino falls back to a regular copy (slower + uses double the space until the original is cleaned up).

If you’re running kino in Docker, these are paths inside the container — /media and /data/downloads by default. Mount your host directories at those paths in the docker run/compose config.

Step 2: Metadata

kino needs a TMDB API key to look up movie + show metadata (posters, descriptions, cast, release dates). TMDB is free; sign up at themoviedb.org/signup, then visit Settings → API and copy the API Read Access Token (the longer of the two; not the v3 API Key).

Paste it into the Metadata step. The wizard verifies the token against TMDB before letting you continue — if it’s invalid, you get a clear error, not a 404 four hours later when you try to import something.

Note

The TMDB token is the only third-party credential kino requires. Everything else (Trakt, OpenSubtitles, MDBList) is optional and only kicks in if you configure it later under Settings → Integrations.

Step 3: Languages

Pick one or more languages you want releases in. Default is English. The languages you select feed into the quality profile scoring — releases with audio tracks in your accepted languages get a positive score; ones in unaccepted languages get scored lower or rejected entirely depending on your profile.

You can change this list later from Settings → Quality profiles without redoing the wizard.

Step 4: Indexers

This is where you tell kino where to search for releases. Three paths through this step:

Pick from the built-in catalogue

kino ships with a few hundred Cardigann definitions for public + private indexers. Browse the list, pick one, and fill in any per-site credentials it asks for (most public indexers need none).

Add a Torznab URL

If you already run a Torznab-compatible indexer aggregator, paste its URL + API key here. Many setups have one of these already; kino consumes the standard Torznab protocol.

Skip and add later

If you’d rather come back to this, you can skip the step. kino won’t be able to acquire anything until at least one indexer is configured, but the rest of the app works fine — you can browse your library, play files you’ve added manually, etc.

See Setup → Indexers for the full configuration reference.

Step 5: Ready

Click Finish. kino reloads into the main UI.

What happens next

Once the wizard closes, kino starts running its scheduler. The first time it ticks (within a few seconds) it’ll:

• Refresh metadata for any items already in the library (none on a fresh install)
• Start the download monitor, which will pick up anything you’ve followed
• Start the periodic search sweep — every 15 minutes by default, it looks for new releases of items you’ve followed but don’t yet have

Add your first item from the search bar (top right of the home page) and you’ll see it appear in Library → Downloads within a minute.

Re-running the wizard

The wizard runs once per fresh install. If you want to re-run it (e.g. you’ve reset the database), the simplest path is:

# From inside the dev container:
just reset
# Or with the running binary:
kino reset && systemctl restart kino  # or your platform's restart command

This deletes the database + librqbit session + cached state. On next boot, the wizard reappears.

What’s next

• Setup → Indexers — deep dive on indexer configuration
• Setup → VPN — configure the built-in WireGuard client
• Setup → Quality profiles — fine-tune what releases kino accepts
• Features → Library — how the library
  • monitoring + automation tie together