Install on Windows

Ringleader ships for Windows as an MSI installer (Ringleader-<version>-amd64.msi). Installing it gives you two things at once:

• the Ringleader Windows app: a native app that lives in your system tray, fronts the local container runtime, and boots your workstations, and
• the rl CLI (plus the bundled docker, kubectl, kind, and helm tools, and the Docker compose/buildx plugins), added to the machine PATH.

On Windows, local workstations run as WSL2 distributions. There is no separate virtual-machine tool to install or manage.

Requirements

• A 64-bit (x64) PC running Windows 11, or Windows 10 with WSL2 available.
• WSL2 enabled. If you have never used WSL, run wsl --install from an elevated (Administrator) terminal and reboot when prompted.
• Administrator rights (the installer is per-machine and updates the machine PATH).

You do not need Docker Desktop. Ringleader bundles its own container runtime and is designed to replace it.

1. Download the installer

Download the latest Ringleader-<version>-amd64.msi from the link your beta invitation provided. Save it somewhere easy to find, such as your Downloads folder.

2. Run the installer

Double-click the .msi and follow the steps. Windows will ask for administrator approval to complete the installation.

The installer places the app and the bundled command-line tools and updates the machine PATH. Unlike the macOS installer, there is no separate “installation complete” dialog. When the progress window closes, the install is finished.

What gets installed

The package installs the tray app and puts the bundled command-line tools on the machine PATH:

Unlike the macOS package there is no lima/limactl: the Windows local provider is WSL2, so workstations run as WSL2 distributions instead of Lima VMs.

3. Verify the install

Open a new terminal (so it picks up the updated PATH) and confirm the CLI is available:

rl version

4. Start the app

Open Ringleader from the Start menu. On first launch it starts the background rl daemon, the control loop that boots workstations and forwards the Docker socket.

5. Complete first-run onboarding

The first time it runs, the app shows a short onboarding wizard with a few opt-in actions: sign in to a control plane, start at login, and create a local workstation. Pick the ones you want, or skip and do them later from Settings.

See Onboarding for a full walkthrough of signing in and bringing up your first workstation.

6. Find the app in the system tray

Ringleader lives in the system tray. Look for the Ringleader mark there. Click it for the status of your workstations at a glance, with per-row controls.

The Settings window

Right-click the tray icon and choose Settings to configure Ringleader. The window groups options into several panes (General, Local Container Workstation, Account & Local, Tools, and Troubleshoot) plus an About pane that shows the installed app and daemon versions.

Optional: reach workstations with plain ssh

rl shell is a convenience, not a requirement. The daemon continuously writes a real OpenSSH configuration for your workstations under %USERPROFILE%\.ringleader\ssh\, and keeps it current as workstations come and go. Wire it into your own SSH config once, from PowerShell:

$ssh = "$env:USERPROFILE\.ssh"
$cfg = "$ssh\config"
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $ssh | Out-Null
$existing = if (Test-Path $cfg) { Get-Content -Raw $cfg } else { "" }

# Add the Include as the FIRST line (see the warning below).
Set-Content -Path $cfg -Value ("Include ~/.ringleader/ssh/config`r`n`r`n" + $existing)

From then on ssh my-box, scp, git clone my-box:repo.git, and VS Code / Cursor Remote-SSH all reach your workstations by name, with the host key pinned.

Three things differ from macOS:

• No connection multiplexing. Win32-OpenSSH does not support ControlMaster, so Ringleader omits it and every ssh invocation performs a full handshake.
• Several ssh.exe may be on your PATH: the Windows OpenSSH optional feature, the one bundled with Git for Windows, and any installed by Scoop or Chocolatey. They read different configuration files. Check which one wins with Get-Command ssh.
• WSL has its own SSH config. The Include above applies to the Windows host. An ssh run inside a WSL distribution reads that distribution’s ~/.ssh/config.

If your OpenSSH build does not expand ~ in an Include, use the full path instead: Include C:\Users\<you>\.ringleader\ssh\config.

See Using ssh directly in the CLI reference for the host aliases, what each generated block contains, and the caveats.

Uninstalling

Remove Ringleader like any other Windows application: Settings → Apps → Installed apps → Ringleader → Uninstall. Your data directory (%USERPROFILE%\.ringleader) is left in place; remove it too if you want a completely clean slate.