by rbc33
Free macOS-native Cluely alternative. AI chat invisible to screen sharing. Ollama, OpenAI, Claude. Swift. No Electron. No subscription.
# Add to your Claude Code skills
git clone https://github.com/rbc33/GhostbarLast scanned: 9/29/2026
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"status": "PASSED",
"scannedAt": "2026-09-29T10:25:34.269Z",
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}See how Ghostbar compares with popular alternatives.
Ghostbar is an open-source ai agents skill for AI coding assistants such as Claude Code, Codex CLI, and ChatGPT, built by rbc33. Free macOS-native Cluely alternative. AI chat invisible to screen sharing. Ollama, OpenAI, Claude. Swift. No Electron. No subscription. It has 100 GitHub stars.
Yes. Ghostbar passed SkillsLLM's automated security scan — a dependency vulnerability audit plus prompt-injection heuristics — with no high-severity issues. You can read the full report in the Security Report section on this page.
Clone the repository with "git clone https://github.com/rbc33/Ghostbar" and add it to your Claude Code skills directory (see the Installation section above).
Ghostbar is primarily written in Swift. It is open-source under rbc33 on GitHub, so you can review or fork the full source.
Yes. SkillsLLM lists many other AI Agents skills you can browse and compare side by side. Open the AI Agents category from the badge at the top of this page, or use the Related Skills and comparison links further down to weigh Ghostbar against similar tools.
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⚠️ Third-Party Software Notice
This skill is third-party open-source software developed and hosted independently on GitHub. SkillsLLM is an informational directory and does not control or maintain the underlying repository.
Any security checks, ratings, or warnings displayed by SkillsLLM are automated and limited in scope. They do not constitute a security certification or guarantee that the software is safe, error-free, or free from malicious code, vulnerabilities, compromised dependencies, or prompt-injection risks.
Review the source code, permissions, dependencies, and configuration before installing or running any third-party skill. Use is at your own risk. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, SkillsLLM is not liable for losses arising from third-party software.
No Electron. No subscription. No cloud. Just Swift.
AI invisible to screen sharing — Zoom, Teams, Meet, OBS.
Download DMG · Homebrew · Build from source · Report bug
Every other Cluely alternative is built on Electron or Tauri — that means a bundled Chromium browser, 200–500MB of RAM just to open, and slow startup times.
Ghostbar is written in native Swift using AppKit. It starts instantly, uses minimal memory, and feels like a real macOS app — because it is one.
| Ghostbar | Pluely | Natively | Vysper | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tech | ✅ Native Swift | Tauri/Rust | Electron | Electron |
| macOS only | ✅ Purpose-built | ❌ Cross-platform | ❌ Cross-platform | ❌ Cross-platform |
| Ollama / local LLMs | ✅ | ⚠️ Partial | ✅ | ❌ |
| Free | ✅ Always | ✅ | ✅ Free tier | ✅ |
| No subscription | ✅ | ✅ | ⚠️ Premium tier | ✅ |
| Open source | ✅ MIT | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| No telemetry | ✅ Zero | ⚠️ | ⚠️ Limited | ❓ |
| Voice input | ✅ On-device | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| App size | ✅ ~5MB | ~10MB | ~150MB | ~200MB |
A macOS menu bar AI client that is completely invisible to screen capture.
Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, OBS, QuickTime, Cmd+Shift+5 — none of them see it. It only exists on your physical display.
// The entire secret. One native AppKit API.
window.sharingType = .none
No hacks. No injection. A public, documented Apple API that removes the window from the display capture pipeline before any recording tool can touch it.
Technical interviews
LeetCode, HackerRank, take-home assessments. Ask for hints, complexity analysis, edge cases — all while sharing your screen. The interviewer sees your code. They don't see Ghostbar.
Live coding demos
Presenting to a client or team? Use AI to look up syntax, generate boilerplate, or sanity-check logic in real time. Nobody notices.
Work calls & meetings
Prepare answers on the fly. Summarize what was just said. Draft a response before you speak.
System design interviews
Ask for architecture patterns, trade-offs, scalability approaches instantly.
Local & private
Pair with Ollama or LM Studio for fully on-device inference. Nothing leaves your machine.
| Tool | Status |
|---|---|
| Zoom | ✅ Invisible |
| Google Meet (Chrome) | ✅ Invisible |
| Microsoft Teams | ✅ Invisible |
| OBS Studio | ✅ Invisible |
| QuickTime screen recording | ✅ Invisible |
| macOS Cmd+Shift+5 | ✅ Invisible |
| 🫥 Invisible by default | Hidden from every screen capture tool on macOS |
| 🍎 Menu bar only | No Dock icon. No trace. Appears as ⬡ |
| 🤖 Multi-backend | Ollama, OpenAI, Claude, OpenRouter, NVIDIA NIM, LM Studio, llama.cpp |
| 🎙 Voice input | On-device transcription via whisper-cpp |
| 📸 Screenshot analysis | Capture your screen → attach to message. Model sees it, recorder doesn't. |
| 🔒 Zero telemetry | No analytics, no cloud, no tracking |
| ⚡ Instant startup | Native Swift — no Chromium, no Electron overhead |
brew tap rbc33/ghostbar
brew install --cask ghostbar
Note: Ghostbar is not notarized. On first launch, right-click → Open → Open anyway.
Option A — DMG (fastest)
Download Ghostbar-v1.0.2.dmg, drag to Applications, open.
Option B — Homebrew
brew tap rbc33/ghostbar
brew install --cask ghostbar
Option C — Build from source
# Requirements: macOS 13+, Xcode Command Line Tools
xcode-select --install
git clone https://github.com/rbc33/Ghostbar.git && cd Ghostbar
bash build.sh
open Ghostbar.app
The ⬡ icon appears in your menu bar. Click → Open chat.
macOS exposes a window-level API that controls whether a window participates in the display server's capture pipeline:
NSWindow.sharingType = .none // excluded from all capture
NSWindow.sharingType = .readOnly // default — visible to recorders
Setting .none tells the macOS compositor to exclude the window from all capture operations before any recording application, screenshot tool, or API (CGWindowListCreateImage, SCStreamConfiguration, etc.) can observe it.
The window renders normally on your physical display. It simply does not exist to capture pipelines.
Open ⬡ → Settings… and pick your backend:
| Backend | URL | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Ollama | http://localhost:11434 |
Local, no key |
| OpenAI | https://api.openai.com/v1 |
API key required |
| Anthropic | https://api.anthropic.com/v1 |
API key required |
| OpenRouter | https://openrouter.ai/api/v1 |
API key required |
| NVIDIA NIM | https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1 |
Free tier available |
| LM Studio | http://localhost:1234/v1 |
Local, no key |
| llama.cpp | http://localhost:8080/v1 |
Local, no key |
Any OpenAI-compatible server works — select OpenAI and set the URL.
nvapi-Hundreds of models (Llama, Mistral, Gemma, Qwen, DeepSeek) — no credit card required.
brew install whisper-cpp
curl -L -o /opt/homebrew/share/whisper-cpp/ggml-base.bin \
https://huggingface.co/ggerganov/whisper.cpp/resolve/main/ggml-base.bin
Press 🎙 or ⌘⌥ → speak → press again → transcribed and sent. Fully on-device.
| Model | Size | Quality |
|---|---|---|
tiny |
75 MB | Fast |
base |
150 MB | Balanced ✓ |
small |
470 MB | Better |
medium |
1.5 GB | Best |
⌘⇧ → captures screen → attaches to next message.
The model sees your screen. The screen recorder doesn't see Ghostbar.
Works with any vision model: llava, gpt-4o, gemma3, claude-opus-4-7…
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Send message | Enter |
| New line | Shift+Enter |
| Voice input | ⌘⌥ |
| Screenshot | ⌘⇧ |
| Close | Cmd+W |
All shortcuts customizable in Settings.
PRs welcome. Open an issue first for large changes.
git clone https://github.com/rbc33/Ghostbar.git
cd Ghostbar
open Package.swift # Xcode opens automatically
Made with ⬡ — because some things should stay invisible.