by SaarthurR
Fast, free voice assistant for your Mac. No API key: runs on your Claude Pro or Max plan. Remembers you and learns your shortcuts. Hold ⌃⌥Space and talk.
# Add to your Claude Code skills
git clone https://github.com/SaarthurR/atticus-macSee how atticus-mac compares with popular alternatives.
atticus-mac is an open-source ai agents skill for AI coding assistants such as Claude Code, Codex CLI, and ChatGPT, built by SaarthurR. Fast, free voice assistant for your Mac. No API key: runs on your Claude Pro or Max plan. Remembers you and learns your shortcuts. Hold ⌃⌥Space and talk. It has 62 GitHub stars.
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Clone the repository with "git clone https://github.com/SaarthurR/atticus-mac" and add it to your Claude Code skills directory (see the Installation section above).
atticus-mac is primarily written in Python. It is open-source under SaarthurR on GitHub, so you can review or fork the full source.
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| You say | Atticus |
|---|---|
| "Code on my big screen, Chrome and Terminal on the laptop." | Arranges three windows across two displays. |
| "Open Spotify." · "Terminal on the left." | Runs instantly, with no AI at all. |
| "Find my notes about the Tokyo trip." | Searches your files by what's inside them, opens the match on your other screen. |
| "What's wrong with this code?" | Looks at your screen and answers in a line. |
| "Summarize this article in three bullets." | Reads the page for you. |
| "Reply: sounds good, see you at 7." | Types it into the app you're in. It never sends. |
| "Play my late night coding playlist on Spotify." | Plays it in a second, no clicks. Any song, artist or playlist. |
| "When I say focus mode, close Slack and open my to-do list." | Remembers it. Next time, two words do it all. |
Choose Hold to talk or Press to toggle in Settings → General → Shortcut behavior. Hold mode sends when you release. Toggle mode starts on the first press and sends on the second; pauses keep listening. Pressing the shortcut while Atticus answers stops it; during spoken playback it stops the voice. Esc cancels listening without sending. Toggle recordings reach a review screen after 60 seconds, rather than sending automatically. Closing the overlay or pausing Atticus stops its microphone, workers and voice.
Click any answer to copy it, including earlier answers still shown in the box. Click your request to edit and ask again, or press ↑ in an empty typing box to recall the latest request. The overlay stays within your display when resized and respects Reduce Motion.
Apple's final transcript confirms each voice request before AI tools or learned shortcuts run. AI reasoning can start during a pause, but its tools wait for confirmation. If speech finalization takes too long, Atticus offers the partial text for review. Instant commands still skip the AI entirely. Supported built-in commands run mid-sentence, before you send, with Instant commands and Act while I’m talking on (Settings → Intelligence). Learned shortcuts wait for confirmed words.
You need:
xcode-select --installPaste this in Terminal:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SaarthurR/atticus-mac/main/install.sh | bash
It checks your Mac, downloads Atticus to ~/.atticus, builds ~/Applications/Atticus.app, and opens it. Atticus starts at login and updates itself from there (turn that off in Settings → About & Updates).
Working on the code instead? Clone the repo anywhere and run ./build.sh after each change.
The first launch opens a setup window. It checks your Claude plan, then asks for each macOS permission.
After that, Atticus lives in the menu bar. Open it from Spotlight (⌘Space, "Atticus") for Settings: shortcut, sounds, model, speed, screen, memory and usage.
If you sign out of Claude later, the setup window comes back by itself.
To see it again: defaults delete com.atticus.app onboarded, then restart the app.
Test: python3 atticus.py --selftest on macOS, plus python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -v for offline regressions. After building, ~/Applications/Atticus.app/Contents/MacOS/Atticus --selftest checks native transcript matching without opening the app. Node, when installed, also checks embedded JavaScript syntax. For the UI interaction checks, run python3 -m http.server 8765 --bind 127.0.0.1 from the repo and open http://127.0.0.1:8765/tests/ui.html; it uses a mock native bridge and makes no Mac actions or AI calls.
Remove: launchctl bootout gui/$(id -u)/com.atticus.app, then delete ~/Applications/Atticus.app, ~/.atticus, ~/.config/atticus (your settings and history) and ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.atticus.app.plist.
Say "tell me when Codex is done" or "watch this page until it says shipped". Atticus sets it up once, then checks every 5 seconds on your Mac with no AI, so waiting is free. When it fires you get a notification, and it runs a follow-up if you asked for one. A window must stay open on this desktop (covered is fine). Coding agents like Codex are watched through their own log, with no screen at all. Say "stop watching" to cancel.
Atticus has to stay fast and nearly free, so new features must fit under these limits:
python3 atticus.py --budget.Once a day, Atticus sends one random ID (made on your Mac, not tied to you) to PostHog, so I can see how many people use it. It never sends your name, your asks or your screen. Turn it off in Settings → Account & Access → Count me as a user.
Atticus.swift: the app (hotkey, speech, overlay, onboarding window)atticus.py: the brain (fast commands, system prompt, helpers for windows, web and screen)ui/ui.html, ui/onboarding.html, ui/settings.html: the overlay, the welcome flow, and Settingsui/AppIcon.icns: the app iconui/orbs.js: the thinking-orbs engine (MIT, Jakub Antalik)MIT. See LICENSE. ui/orbs.js is from thinking-orbs, also MIT.
Run regressions with a scratch ATTICUS_DIR and use tests/ui.html and tests/settings.html for mock-bridge UI checks. Keep personal agent settings, credentials and runtime state out of commits. Anonymous usage telemetry is disabled unless ATTICUS_POSTHOG_KEY is supplied through the environment; no key is embedded in the source.