Accent CMS on Windows

This page takes you from a Windows machine without Accent CMS to a running site, and covers what differs from Linux and macOS. Every example uses PowerShell. The getting-started guide covers the rest, on every platform.

If you prefer a Linux environment, the Linux install script also works inside WSL; the rest of this page is about running Accent natively on Windows.

Requirements

Windows 10 22H2 or Windows 11, on an x64 or ARM64 processor.
Windows PowerShell 5.1, which ships with Windows, or PowerShell 7.

Install

Run the installer:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AccentCMS/accent/main/install.ps1 | iex

The installer puts accent.exe in %LOCALAPPDATA%\accent and checks the download against the release’s SHA-256 checksums. When gpg is on your PATH – Gpg4win provides it – it also verifies the release signature. To make the install stop whenever a check cannot run, set $env:ACCENT_INSTALL_REQUIRE_VERIFY = "1" before you run it. See Verifying downloads for what each check proves.

When the installer reports that %LOCALAPPDATA%\accent is not on your PATH, add it for your account:

$path = [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('Path', 'User')
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('Path', "$path;$env:LOCALAPPDATA\accent", 'User')

Then open a new terminal and check the install:

accent --version

You can also download accent-<version>-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip, or the aarch64-pc-windows-msvc archive for ARM64, from the latest release. Extract accent.exe into a folder on your PATH. To reinstall or pin a version, see Reinstalling or pinning a version.

Enable long paths

Windows limits paths to 260 characters for programs that do not support long paths, and accent validate warns until long paths are enabled. Enabling them lifts the limit for programs that do support them. To enable them, open PowerShell with Run as administrator, run the following command, and then restart Windows:

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem" -Name LongPathsEnabled -Value 1 -PropertyType DWORD -Force

Create and serve a site

accent init my-site
Set-Location my-site
accent serve

Open https://127.0.0.1:4400 in your browser. When you save a Markdown file under content\, the browser refreshes.

The development certificate

accent serve uses HTTPS with a self-signed certificate, so your browser warns on the first visit; choose the option to continue. Accent stores the certificate in %LOCALAPPDATA%\accentcms\dev-cert\ and reuses it, so the warning appears once.

Accent writes the certificate’s private key, key.pem, so that only your account, SYSTEM, and the Administrators group can read it.

On the first start, Accent prints a command that trusts the certificate for your Windows account:

certutil -addstore -user Root "C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\accentcms\dev-cert\cert.pem"

Run the command exactly as Accent prints it, and choose Yes when Windows asks you to confirm installing the certificate. Programs that trust the Windows certificate store then accept the certificate.

To serve plain HTTP instead, run accent serve --no-tls.

Set environment variables

Accent reads some settings from environment variables, such as your license key in ACCENTCMS_LICENSE. Set one for the current PowerShell session:

$env:ACCENTCMS_LICENSE = "<your license key>"

To keep a variable for new terminals, store it for your account, and then open a new terminal:

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('ACCENTCMS_LICENSE', '<your license key>', 'User')

To remove the variable from the current session, run Remove-Item Env:ACCENTCMS_LICENSE.

Reload the configuration

Windows has no SIGHUP. To apply changes to config.yaml without restarting the server, call the reload endpoint. Against accent serve --no-tls, this works in both Windows PowerShell 5.1 and PowerShell 7:

Invoke-RestMethod -Method Post -Uri http://127.0.0.1:4400/_admin/reload

A successful reload returns:

message                status
-------                ------
Configuration reloaded ok

The default HTTPS server needs a trusted certificate first. In PowerShell 7, you can skip the certificate check for this local request instead; Windows PowerShell 5.1 has no such option:

Invoke-RestMethod -Method Post -Uri https://127.0.0.1:4400/_admin/reload -SkipCertificateCheck

In development, the endpoint needs no token, and every request counts against a limit of 10 a minute that failed admin logins share. In production (accent serve --production), send the server’s admin token: the value of ACCENT_ADMIN_TOKEN where the server runs, or, when that is not set, admin.token in its config.yaml.

$headers = @{ Authorization = "Bearer <admin token>" }
Invoke-RestMethod -Method Post -Uri http://127.0.0.1:4400/_admin/reload -Headers $headers

In production, the endpoint returns 401 for a missing or wrong token, and 503 when no token is configured. Failed attempts share a limit of 10 a minute with failed admin logins; past it, a failed attempt returns 429, while a request with the right token is never limited. If the new configuration is invalid, the server keeps the previous one and the endpoint returns 500 with the error.

Stop the server

Press Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Break in the terminal that runs accent serve, or close its window. Each one stops the server gracefully: it stops accepting connections, gives requests in progress time to finish, and logs the event, for example Received Ctrl+Break, shutting down.... Over HTTPS, the default, it waits at most 5 seconds; with --no-tls it waits for every request. After you close the window it waits at most 4 seconds, because Windows ends the process 5 seconds later. See Stopping the server for details.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to do
`accent` is not recognized as a command	Add `%LOCALAPPDATA%\accent` to your `PATH` as shown in Install, then open a new terminal.
`accent` does not start: Windows reports that `VCRUNTIME140.dll` was not found, or a script sees exit code `-1073741515`	Releases up to 0.27.1 need the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable, which a clean Windows install does not have. Install a release after 0.27.1, which needs nothing beyond Windows, or install the Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable from Microsoft.
A path is too long	Move the site to a shorter folder, such as `C:\sites\my-site`. Enabling long paths helps only programs that support them.
`accent serve` stops with `server bind failed: 127.0.0.1:4400`	Another process holds the port, or Windows reserves it. Find the process with `Get-Process -Id (Get-NetTCPConnection -LocalPort 4400 -State Listen).OwningProcess`. If `Get-NetTCPConnection` finds no connection, the port may be in a range Windows reserves, for example for Hyper-V or WSL 2; list those ranges with `netsh interface ipv4 show excludedportrange protocol=tcp`. Either way, `accent serve --port 4401` starts Accent on another port.
Builds and hot reload are slow	Real-time antivirus scanning checks every file Accent writes. Exclude the site’s build output (`output` by default) and its cache directories, such as `.media-cache` and `.diagram-cache`, rather than your whole profile. For Microsoft Defender, run `Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath "C:\sites\my-site\output"` in PowerShell opened with Run as administrator.
Files have Windows line endings	No action is needed. Accent reads frontmatter with CRLF line endings the same as LF, so Git’s `core.autocrlf` setting can stay on.
`Invoke-RestMethod` reports that it could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel	The dev server uses HTTPS with a self-signed certificate. Trust the development certificate, use `-SkipCertificateCheck` in PowerShell 7, or run `accent serve --no-tls`.