A desktop app that lets you launch applications, take screenshots, and create and automate custom workflows with a single click.
This app can record a multi-step workflow and collapse it into a single click. If you can dream it, this app can automate it. Custom workflows built by you, for you, and entirely local to your computer. Create arbitrary 1-click buttons that execute custom, recorded sequences of actions like keystrokes, mouse clicks, or shell commands. You create the macro (the sequence of clicks and keystrokes) and this app makes it a clickable button that it will automate for you. Free to install and use with AI.
Press
⌃⌘Bfrom anywhere — eight tiles appear. Click one — magic happens.
Recommended — one line, no Gatekeeper dance:
npm install -g bento-deckThat installs Bento.app to /Applications and a bento CLI to /usr/local/bin/bento. The postinstall strips the quarantine flag so the ad-hoc-signed binary launches without the "from an unidentified developer" prompt.
Or download the DMG from the Releases page, drag to Applications, then right-click → Open the first time.
Or build from source (requires Xcode Command Line Tools, ~1 GB; or full Xcode for the test target):
git clone https://github.com/RyanAlberts/bento.git
cd bento
./scripts/build-app.sh release
open build/Bento.app
./scripts/install-cli.sh # optional: symlink `bento` to /usr/local/binStream Deck Mobile is locked to iOS. Mosaic and Quadro are skeuomorphic and largely abandoned. Raycast script-commands are great but modal — they vanish when you act. There was room for a small native Mac app whose only job is "press a tile, run a thing", with the same hot-key + Hammerspoon + Shortcuts hooks a power user already lives in.
It is deliberately a tiny app. One window, one editor sheet, one CLI binary, one global hotkey. ~1.4 MB compiled. The whole codebase is ~1 400 lines of Swift you can read in an afternoon.
The grid is laid out so keyboard arrow navigation flows intuitively from the top-left:
| Position | Tile | What it does | Permission |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1, 1 | AI | Open Google AI Mode in your default browser. Always lit accent — your "go" tile. | None |
| 1, 2 | Snap | Open macOS Screenshot — pick region, window, or full screen. | None (uses Screenshot.app's existing grant) |
| 1, 3 | Coffee | Stop your Mac from sleeping for 60 minutes. Live ring traces the countdown. | None |
| 1, 4 | Focus | 25-minute focus session — Mac stays awake, plays a chime when done. | None |
| 2, 1 | Notes | Open the macOS Notes app. (Edit to point at your favorite note app.) | None |
| 2, 2 | Mic | Toggle the system mic mute. Tile glows red when muted. Live state. | Asks once for Automation (System Events) |
| 2, 3 | Dark | Toggle macOS Dark Mode on/off. | Asks once for Automation (System Events) |
| 2, 4 | Sleep | Put your displays to sleep right now (doesn't sleep the whole Mac). | None |
| 3, 1 | + | Add a new tile. | None |
Hover any tile in the app to see this same one-line description. Open Help → Bento Help in the menu bar for the full tour.
You can edit, remove, or reorder any of them. None are sacred.
Bento ships as a regular macOS app, not a menu bar utility:
- Dock icon — bento-box themed, appears in your Dock like any other app
- Standard menu bar at the top of the screen: App / File / Edit / View / Window / Help
- Traffic-light close button on the window — clicking the red X hides the panel (Bento stays in your Dock so
⌃⌘Bstill re-summons it). To quit fully:⌘Qor App menu → Quit Bento - Mission Control + Spaces + hot corners all work normally. The window respects
⌘+Hto hide,⌘+Mto minimize - Cmd+Tab brings Bento forward like any other app
⌃⌘Bglobal hotkey summons the window from any app — even when Bento is hidden or behind other apps
The 60-second tutorial:
- Click the
+tile. Form opens. - Pick a label, an SF Symbol name (e.g.
bolt.fill,wifi,cloud.rain), a tint, an action type (Launch app / Open URL / Run shell), and a payload. - Save.
The shell action is the universal escape hatch. Anything you can write in zsh works:
osascript -e 'tell application "Music" to next track'
shortcuts run "Lights Off"
hs -c 'hs.window.focusedWindow():maximize()'
curl -X POST https://hooks.slack.com/services/...Edit deck.json directly: ~/Library/Application Support/Bento/deck.json. The app hot-reloads via FSEvents within a second of save. Schema is documented in docs/schema.md.
Sync across machines: the CLI exports and imports plain JSON, so you can keep your deck in your dotfiles repo:
bento export > ~/dotfiles/bento-deck.json
bento import < ~/dotfiles/bento-deck.jsonStuck on the shell command for the thing you want? Paste this template into Claude / ChatGPT / Gemini / your favorite assistant:
I want to add a new tile to Bento, a macOS macro app. A Bento "shell" tile runs a single zsh command as my user account on macOS 14+. Please write me one.
What I want the tile to do:
Constraints:
- One-line shell command preferred; multi-line is fine if necessary
- Must work on macOS 14 or later
- Avoid commands that trigger the Accessibility "control your computer" prompt (no
osascript ... key code, noosascript ... keystroke)- Automation prompts (System Events, Finder) are acceptable but should be minimal — flag them explicitly
- No
sudo(Bento doesn't elevate privileges)- Prefer built-in macOS commands (
pmset,caffeinate,screencapture,defaults,osascript,open,networksetup) over third-party toolsOutput format — exactly these four lines:
Label: <one-word label, fits a tile> Icon: <suggest an SF Symbol name, e.g. moon.fill / wifi / bolt.fill> Command: <the exact zsh command> Description: <one-sentence tooltip text>
You ask: "a tile that toggles whether the Dock auto-hides"
Claude returns something like:
Label: Dock
Icon: dock.rectangle
Command: defaults write com.apple.dock autohide -bool $([[ $(defaults read com.apple.dock autohide 2>/dev/null) == "1" ]] && echo false || echo true) && killall Dock
Description: Toggle whether the Dock auto-hides when you mouse away from it.
Paste those four values into Bento → click + → fill in Label / Icon / Action: Run a shell command / paste Command into the field / paste Description as the tooltip → Add. Done.
You ask: "a tile that copies my current Wi-Fi password to clipboard"
Claude returns something like:
Label: WiFi
Icon: wifi
Command: security find-generic-password -wa "$(networksetup -getairportnetwork en0 | sed 's/^.*: //')" 2>/dev/null | pbcopy && osascript -e 'display notification "Wi-Fi password copied" with title "Bento"'
Description: Copy your current Wi-Fi network's password to the clipboard. Triggers the macOS Keychain prompt the first time.
(That second one will pop a Keychain prompt the first time — by design, since Wi-Fi passwords are protected.)
| What you want | Roughly how |
|---|---|
| Toggle Do Not Disturb |
shortcuts run "Turn Focus On" (set up a Shortcut named that first) |
| Switch audio output device |
SwitchAudioSource -s "AirPods Pro" (install via brew install switchaudio-osx) |
| Open a Slack channel | open 'slack://channel?team=T0...&id=C0...' |
| Show / hide hidden files in Finder | `defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool |
| Restart Finder | killall Finder |
| Empty Downloads folder older than 30 days | find ~/Downloads -mindepth 1 -mtime +30 -delete |
| Open today's calendar | open -a Calendar |
| Quick-add to Things 3 | open 'things:///add?title=Brain%20dump&when=today' |
| Convert clipboard URL to QR code |
qrencode -o /tmp/qr.png "$(pbpaste)" && open /tmp/qr.png (needs brew install qrencode) |
| Run a pre-saved Hammerspoon function | hs -c 'doMyThing()' |
| Toggle macOS menu bar auto-hide | `defaults write NSGlobalDomain _HIHideMenuBar -bool |
| Open the iCloud Drive folder | open ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs |
If you build something good, drop the JSON in recipes/ and send a PR — fast-merged.
| Trigger source | How to fire a tile |
|---|---|
| Global hotkey | ⌃⌘B toggles the panel |
| CLI | bento press dark |
| URL scheme | open 'bento://press/dark' |
| Hammerspoon | hs.execute("/usr/local/bin/bento press dark") |
| Shortcuts | "Run Shell Script" → /usr/local/bin/bento press dark |
| Karabiner | Bind a key chord → run /usr/local/bin/bento press dark |
| Stream Deck Mobile | Use the "Open URL" action with bento://press/dark |
See docs/hammerspoon-recipes.md for ready-to-paste examples.
The recipes/ directory holds community-contributed tile fragments. PRs to recipes/ are fast-merged — they don't touch app code. If you build a tile worth sharing, drop the JSON in there.
- No telemetry
- No analytics
- No accounts
- No network calls (other than the npm postinstall download from this GitHub release)
- No background phone-home
grep -r "URLSession\|http" Sources/ returns nothing in the app code.
A short tour of the codebase:
| Where | What |
|---|---|
Sources/Bento/BentoApp.swift |
App entry, menu bar, URL scheme, FSEvents wiring |
Sources/Bento/PanelController.swift |
NSPanel + NSHostingView bridge, glass material, multi-display |
Sources/Bento/Models/ |
Tile, the Action protocol, three concrete actions |
Sources/Bento/Storage/ |
DeckStore (Codable JSON) + DeckWatcher (FSEvents hot-reload) |
Sources/Bento/Views/ |
SwiftUI: DeckView, TileView, TileEditor, ConfettiView |
Sources/Bento/LiveState/ |
CaffeinateMonitor, MicMonitor — power the live tiles |
Sources/Bento/Hotkey/GlobalHotkey.swift |
Carbon RegisterEventHotKey for ⌃⌘B |
Sources/BentoCLI/main.swift |
The bento CLI; talks to the running app via Distributed Notifications |
npm/ |
The bento npm package (postinstall downloads this GitHub release) |
scripts/build-app.sh |
Wraps the SPM-built binary into Bento.app |
scripts/build-zip.sh / build-dmg.sh |
Release artifacts |
Why SPM and not Xcode? It builds with just Command Line Tools (~1 GB instead of 15 GB), the repo is text-only (no .pbxproj merge conflicts), and CI is faster. Open the Package.swift in Xcode anytime if you want previews or breakpoints.
- macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
- Xcode Command Line Tools (
xcode-select --install) for building from source - Node 18+ for the npm install path
See CONTRIBUTING.md. Recipe PRs get fast-merged.
- Macro recording — record cursor moves, clicks, and keystrokes; play them back from a tile. Most-requested Stream Deck feature outside of OBS scenes; needs Accessibility permission, which is why it's not in v0.1.
- Auto-update via Sparkle so you don't have to
npm update -g bentoto get fixes. - Configurable global hotkey with a key-recorder UI (v0.1 hardcodes
⌃⌘B). - Play / media-key tile — needs a proper
IOHIDPostEventbridge to send media keys without triggering the "control your computer" Accessibility prompt. Removed from v0.1 defaults until that ships safely. - Universal binary (arm64 + x86_64). v0.1 is arm64-only.
- XCTest target — comes back alongside a library-target refactor that needs full Xcode (Command Line Tools doesn't ship XCTest).
- Homebrew tap as a fourth install path.
| Tile | Triggers prompt? | Which prompt |
|---|---|---|
| Dark | Yes, once | "Bento wants permission to control System Events" (Automation) |
| Mic | Yes, once | Same Automation prompt |
| Lock | No | Uses macOS's built-in CGSession -suspend |
| Coffee, Focus | No | Built-in caffeinate |
| Snap | No | Built-in screencapture |
| Notes | No | Just open -a Notes |
| Sleep | No | Built-in pmset displaysleepnow |
No default tile triggers the "Bento wants to control your computer" Accessibility prompt. That prompt comes from sending keystrokes via osascript ... key code or similar. If you build a custom tile that does that, expect the prompt — and decide whether you want to grant it.
MIT — see LICENSE.