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LeonXu edited this page Apr 20, 2026 · 3 revisions

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Beacon — Dynamic Island for AI Coding

Beacon is a floating panel that lives above your macOS menu bar, inspired by the iPhone Dynamic Island. It provides real-time status and authorization controls for your AI coding tools.

States

Collapsed

A pixel crab mascot sits in the notch area with a pulse indicator. Visible at all times when a coding app is in the foreground.

Collapsed

Expanded

Shows the current project name, AI-generated summary, and a link to open the project in Memora. The crab walks from its collapsed position to the left edge with a leg animation. Since v0.4.1, clicking the empty area collapses the panel so you can see what's behind it.

Expanded

Notification (Authorization)

When your AI tool needs permission to run a command or edit a file, Beacon shows the request details with Allow/Deny buttons.

Authorization

How It Works

  1. Hook integration — The memora-hook PreToolUse handler writes a request file and immediately returns "ask" (non-blocking)
  2. Dual-channel prompt — Both Beacon and the terminal show the authorization prompt simultaneously
  3. Keystroke forwarding — Clicking Allow/Deny in Beacon sends the corresponding keystroke (Enter/Esc/Shift+Tab) directly to the target terminal process via CGEvent.postToPid(), without switching window focus
  4. Auto-dismiss — PostToolUse hook writes a resolved timestamp; Beacon polls every 2 seconds and dismisses when it detects the tool has completed

Permission Rules

Button count is configurable per source and tool:

Source Tool Buttons
Claude Code Edit, Write 3 (Allow / Allow All / Deny)
Claude Code Bash 2 (Allow / Deny)
Other tools Any 2 (Allow / Deny)

Visual Design

  • Shape: Concave bezier arcs (15px wide x 30px tall) create a "growing from screen edge" effect
  • Level: NSPanel at statusBar + 1 — always above the menu bar
  • Background: Pure black NSView (not NSVisualEffectView, which cannot achieve pure black)
  • Coordinate system: Paths drawn in visual coords (y=0 at top), then flipped to CG coords via CGAffineTransform

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