Background service

The installer offers to set this up. It can also be done, changed or undone at any time:

kvad service install
kvad service install --port 5900
kvad service uninstall

On macOS the service is a launchd agent named net.kvad.serve. On Linux it is a systemd user unit. Either way it runs as you, needs no root, and starts when you log in.

#Managing it

kvad service status        # is it running, is it answering, what is loaded
kvad service start
kvad service stop
kvad service restart
kvad service logs -f

stop is for now: the service starts again at the next login. uninstall is for good.

#Status

$ kvad service status
service   net.kvad.serve (launchd) — running, pid 25773
          /Users/ada/.local/bin/kvad-serve --bind 127.0.0.1:5823
address   http://127.0.0.1:5823 (the installed service)
answers   kvad-serve 0.11.0, up 2h 46m, auth none, signed in as local
models    stabilityai/stable-diffusion-xl-base-1.0@gpu-bf16 (6.4 GB)

Running, and answering. Commands go to it; --local runs one here instead.

status asks two things and says when they disagree: the service manager, about whether the job is running, and /api/health, about whether anything answers. A job that is running and not answering on its port is the failure people actually hit.

Its exit status is 0 when the server answers, 1 when the service manager says it is running and nothing answers, and 3 when it is not running.

#The address

install takes --host and --port. With neither, it keeps the address the service already has, then bind under [server] in kvad.toml, then 127.0.0.1:5823.

It will not install a service that cannot start: a port something else holds, or a non-loopback address with no authentication. --force installs over those objections.

#A model ready after a reboot

By default the service holds no model until a request names one. To have the default model in memory as soon as the service is up, set autoload = true under [server] in kvad.toml.