Taktwerk

A native macOS application for managing launchd agents and daemons — built with SwiftUI.

✅ Signed & notarized — installs without Gatekeeper warnings.

Taktwerk provides a clean GUI for browsing, editing, loading, and unloading launchd jobs across all standard directories on macOS. It's designed for developers and power users who work with launchd configuration files regularly.

Features

• Browse all launchd sources — User Agents, Global Agents, User Daemons, Global Daemons
• Visual plist editor — Edit job properties (label, program, schedule, environment, etc.) through a structured form
• Raw XML editor — Switch to raw XML with live validation and Apple's plutil lint integration
• Two-way sync — Changes in the form reflect in XML and vice versa
• Load / Unload — Control launchd jobs directly from the UI
• Custom tags — Organize jobs with colored tags; filter by tag or source
• Filter status bar — Always see which filters are active
• Settings — Configure default view filters, manage tag definitions with rename support
• Refresh — Re-scan launchd directories to pick up external changes

Screenshot

Requirements

• macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later
• Xcode 26+
• Swift 6.2+

Getting Started

# Install XcodeGen (if not already installed)
brew install xcodegen

# Generate the Xcode project
xcodegen generate

# Open in Xcode
open Taktwerk.xcodeproj

Build and run from Xcode (⌘R).

Note: Taktwerk requires access to launchd directories and the launchctl binary. It runs without App Sandbox and uses Hardened Runtime.

Project Structure

Taktwerk/
├── Models/       # Domain models (LaunchdJob, PlistConfig, TagStore, etc.)
├── Services/     # Actor-based services (LaunchctlService, PlistService, LogService)
├── Features/     # Feature modules (JobList, JobDetail, JobEditor, Settings)
├── Shared/       # Reusable views and extensions
└── Resources/    # Bundled resources
TaktwerkTests/    # Unit tests (Swift Testing)
project.yml       # XcodeGen project specification

Architecture

• MVVM with @Observable ViewModels
• Actor-based services for thread-safe system interaction
• Zero third-party dependencies — pure Foundation + SwiftUI
• Swift Testing for unit tests

Running Tests

xcodebuild -project Taktwerk.xcodeproj -scheme Taktwerk -configuration Debug test

Versioning & Releases

Taktwerk uses semantic versioning driven by Git tags.

Creating a release:

git tag v1.2.0
git push origin v1.2.0

This triggers the release workflow which builds a signed, notarized DMG and publishes it as a GitHub Release.

Version numbers:

• CFBundleShortVersionString = tag version (e.g., 1.2.0)
• CFBundleVersion = CI build number (auto-incremented)

CI/CD

Workflow	Trigger	What it does
CI	Push to main, PRs	Build + test
Release	v* tags	Build → sign → DMG → notarize → GitHub Release

Both workflows run on a self-hosted macOS runner (macOS 26 + Xcode 26 required).

Self-Hosted Runner Setup

The CI/CD pipeline requires a self-hosted GitHub Actions runner on a macOS 26 (Tahoe) machine with Apple Silicon.

Prerequisites on the runner machine:

# Install Xcode 26 from the Mac App Store or Apple Developer portal
# Then accept the license:
sudo xcodebuild -license accept

# Install XcodeGen
brew install xcodegen

# Verify
xcode-select -p   # Should point to Xcode 26
xcodegen --version

Register the runner:

1. Go to your GitHub repo → Settings → Actions → Runners → New self-hosted runner
2. Select macOS and ARM64
3. Follow the download and configuration steps shown on the page:

# Download (URL from GitHub UI)
mkdir actions-runner && cd actions-runner
curl -o actions-runner.tar.gz -L <download-url>
tar xzf actions-runner.tar.gz

# Configure
./config.sh --url https://github.com/<owner>/Taktwerk --token <token>
# When prompted for labels, add: self-hosted,macOS,ARM64

# Install as a service (runs on boot)
sudo ./svc.sh install
sudo ./svc.sh start

Required GitHub Secrets (repo → Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions):

Secret	Description
APPLE_CERTIFICATE_P12	Base64-encoded Developer ID Application .p12 certificate
APPLE_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD	Password for the .p12 file
APPLE_TEAM_ID	Apple Developer Team ID (10-char alphanumeric)
APPLE_ID	Apple ID email for notarization
APPLE_ID_PASSWORD	App-specific password for the Apple ID
KEYCHAIN_PASSWORD	Any random string (used for a temporary build keychain)

Exporting your Developer ID certificate:

# In Keychain Access: find "Developer ID Application: <Your Name>"
# Right-click → Export → save as .p12 with a password
# Then base64-encode it:
base64 -i certificate.p12 | pbcopy
# Paste into the APPLE_CERTIFICATE_P12 secret

License

MIT

Author

Oliver Lohmann