MacNotch (personal build)

A native macOS notch dashboard: a borderless panel that hugs the MacBook notch and expands on hover into a stack of modules — Now Playing, Calendar, Battery / System, and a Drop Shelf.

Built entirely with Swift Package Manager — no Xcode required.

Requirements

• macOS 14+ (developed and run on macOS 26, Apple Silicon)
• Swift 6 toolchain (the Command Line Tools are enough — Xcode is not needed)

Build & run

make test     # build and run the unit suite (swift run MacNotchTests)
make run      # build, package MacNotch.app, and launch it
make package  # just build the signed .app into ./build

make run launches MacNotch as a menu-bar agent (no Dock icon). Use the menu-bar icon for Open Settings…, Toggle Notch, and Quit.

Tests use a self-contained runner (Sources/MacNotchTests) instead of XCTest, because XCTest ships only with Xcode. Run them with swift run MacNotchTests; the process exits non-zero if any check fails.

Permissions

Granted on first use; nothing is requested up front:

• Calendar (EventKit) — prompted the first time the Calendar module refreshes.
• Automation: Music / Spotify (AppleScript) — prompted the first time you use the media controls. If Music or Spotify is already running, the same Automation prompt can also appear on the first media refresh.
• Battery/CPU/RAM and the Drop Shelf need no permissions.

Because the app is ad-hoc signed for personal use, macOS may re-prompt for these after a rebuild (the signature changes). Just re-grant.

Modules

Module	What it shows	Data source
Now Playing	Track + transport controls; equalizer glance when collapsed	AppleScript (Music/Spotify) behind a MediaSource seam; opportunistic MediaRemote
Calendar	Today's date + upcoming events	EventKit
Battery / System	Battery %, charge state, CPU, RAM	IOKit + host_statistics
Drop Shelf	Files dragged onto the notch; drag them back out	Security-scoped bookmarks

Modules can be enabled/disabled and reordered in Settings, which also has a Launch at login toggle. Changes apply to the notch immediately.

Manual test checklist

These need a real notch and a person at the keyboard (the unit suite covers the pure logic headlessly):

• Notch shape sits under the physical notch; expands on hover, collapses on exit.
• Now Playing shows the current track and play/pause/next control Music or Spotify.
• Calendar shows today's events after access is granted; "Grant access" opens System Settings when denied.
• Battery / CPU / RAM update live.
• Drag a file onto the expanded panel → a chip appears; it survives a relaunch; drag the chip back into Finder.
• Settings toggles/reorders modules live; "Launch at login" registers MacNotch in System Settings → General → Login Items.

Architecture

Design spec: docs/superpowers/specs/2026-06-22-macnotch-phase1-design.md.

All code lives in the MacNotchKit library; the MacNotch executable is a thin entry point. Each feature conforms to the NotchModule protocol, and the window renders whatever modules are enabled, in order — adding a module is drop-in.

This is Phase 1. Later modules (weather, Pomodoro, GitHub, notifications, translation, Bluetooth, and the AirDrop/zip/convert drop actions) plug into the same NotchModule seam.