Getting Started with rendara

1Installation

rendara works on Windows, Linux, and can capture from Android devices. Choose your platform:

Linux (Recommended)

curl -fsSL https://rendara.ai/install.sh | sh

This installs the rendara CLI and the Vulkan layer to ~/.rendara/.

Windows

Download the installer from the downloads page, or use winget:

winget install rendara

Verify Installation

rendara --version
# rendara 0.1.0

2Your First Capture

Let's capture a frame from a running Vulkan application. You have two options:

Option A: Launch with rendara

Start your application through rendara to enable capture:

rendara launch ./my-game

Press F12 (default hotkey) to capture a frame while the app is running.

Option B: Attach to Running Process

If your app is already running with the Vulkan layer enabled:

rendara capture --pid 12345

Or capture by process name:

rendara capture --name my-game

Capture Output

After capture, you'll see:

Capturing frame from PID 12345 (my-game)...
Frame captured: 847 draw calls, 2.3M vertices
Saved to: frame_001.rdc

3AI-Powered Analysis

This is where rendara shines. Run AI analysis on your capture to automatically find issues:

rendara analyze frame_001.rdc

rendara's AI will scan for:

• Performance bottlenecks — shaders consuming excessive frame time
• Redundant state changes — unnecessary pipeline binds or descriptor updates
• Overdraw — pixels being written multiple times
• Sync hazards — missing or incorrect barriers
• Resource issues — suboptimal memory usage, unnecessary copies

Example Output

rendara analyze frame_001.rdc

Analyzing frame with AI...

⚠ BOTTLENECK: draw call #423 (pbr_lighting.frag)
  Fragment shader: 40.2% of frame time
  Issue: texture sample inside loop (line 87)
  Suggestion: Move texture lookup outside loop and cache result

⚠ OVERDRAW: render pass "main"
  Average overdraw: 2.3x
  Hotspot: center screen (4.1x)
  Suggestion: Consider depth pre-pass for opaque geometry

✓ No sync hazards detected
✓ Memory usage optimal

Interactive Analysis

Open the capture in the rendara GUI for interactive exploration:

rendara open frame_001.rdc

This launches the full debugger UI where you can:

• Browse all draw calls and dispatches
• Inspect textures, buffers, and pipeline state
• Ask the AI questions in natural language
• Step through shader execution

4CLI Usage with Claude Code

rendara integrates with Claude Code for AI-powered debugging from your terminal:

$ claude
You: capture a frame from my vulkan app and find performance issues

Claude: I'll capture a frame and analyze it with rendara.

⚡ rendara capture --name my-game
⚡ rendara analyze frame_001.rdc --ai

Found the bottleneck. Your pbr_lighting.frag shader has a
texture sample inside a loop at line 87, consuming 40% of
frame time. Want me to show you the fix?

Next Steps