Cortex 1.5.0

Cortex 1.5.0

A coaching release: a Practice tab that reads your own sessions and points out habits worth changing, a Discover page for finding and installing community skills without leaving the app, and a menu bar that tells you when a session needs you.

New

• Practice - what your sessions say about your habits. A new tab on the Health page runs nine detectors entirely on-device over your recent sessions and surfaces what to change: never using plan mode, heavy interrupting, missing or bloated CLAUDE.md files, context hygiene, tool-error loops, no skills or hooks configured, no subagents, and MCP servers you configured but never call. Findings are grouped by category (planning, context, memory, hooks, skills, subagents, MCP), ranked by severity, and each one can be dismissed once you have read it.

• Discover - a catalog of community setups. Browse skills, agents, commands, hooks, CLIs, CLAUDE.md files, guides, and collections pulled from public GitHub repositories. The catalog is read live over the public GitHub API, unauthenticated and read-only.

• One-click install. Install anything from Discover straight into a destination you pick. Cortex only ever writes inside that destination's .claude directory, tells you when a target already exists, and asks before overwriting.

• Repo detail. Open any repository for its own health metrics and configuration in a dedicated sheet.

Improved

• Menu bar. A sound plays when a session is waiting on your input, and sessions and workflows that have stopped are pruned from the panel sooner, so the list reflects what is actually running.
• Menu bar reliability. The app now uses the bundle identifier com.cortex.desktop and migrates your preferences from the previous domain once, on first launch. This resolves a case where the status item could stop appearing.

Fixed

• "Keep in Menu Bar" now really means menu bar only. Choosing it at the quit prompt used to close the window while leaving the app in the Dock with nothing behind the icon. The app now drops its Dock icon and returns it whenever the window is reopened. Thanks to @pujayana for the fix.

Notes

• Built from source; the attached Cortex.dmg is unsigned (no Apple Developer ID). On first launch, right-click the app and choose Open to get past Gatekeeper. Requires macOS 15+.

Cortex 1.4.0

Cortex 1.4.0

A monitoring release: a new Environment page that maps your installed toolchain, live usage for Cursor and Antigravity alongside Claude, a menu bar you can tune with per-model weekly windows, and a faster, lighter session-parsing engine.

New

• Environment - your installed toolchain at a glance. A new page scans your machine for the developer CLIs and runtimes you have installed, resolved through your real login-shell PATH so version-manager installs are found. Tools are grouped by category with their version, install source, and last-used time, plus search, source and sort filters, and optional on-device summaries. Anything not in the built-in catalog still shows up under Uncatalogued.

• Live usage for Cursor and Antigravity. The Usage page and the menu bar now track Cursor and Antigravity beside Claude and Codex. Antigravity reads its live per-window quota straight from the local language server (no token or sign-in needed) and appears whenever it is installed, with a hint that usage shows up once you start sending it messages.

• A menu bar you can tune. Choose which providers appear in the dropdown panel (Codex, Cursor, Antigravity; Claude always shows and at least one stays enabled), and the panel now lists every window a provider reports, including per-model weekly limits like Fable and Claude Design.

Improved

• Usage page. Only the providers you actually have appear, with the rest noted and a clean empty state when there are none. Every limit shows used and left with both a countdown and a reset date, and the Home usage card lists every window Claude reports rather than just Session and Weekly.
• Faster, lighter session parsing. Transcripts stream line-by-line instead of loading whole, and unchanged files are reused across scans, cutting peak memory and rescan time sharply on large histories.
• Reliability. Rate-limit responses back off instead of fast-retrying, so a limit can no longer feed on itself, and every external tool the app runs (version and help probes) is bounded by a watchdog so a misbehaving binary can never hang a scan.
• Library. Empty pages read as intentional zero-data states instead of blank panes.

Notes

• Built from source; the attached Cortex.dmg is unsigned (no Apple Developer ID). On first launch, right-click the app and choose Open to get past Gatekeeper. Requires macOS 15+.

Cortex 1.3.0

Cortex 1.3.0

A wide release: a rebuilt cost engine, keyboard-driven navigation, a smarter menu bar, a faster command palette, completion sounds, and a top-to-bottom polish of the shell, Settings, and detail views.

New

• Accurate cost estimates. The cost engine was rebuilt around how Claude Code actually writes transcripts. Each API response is billed exactly once (transcripts repeat a response across multiple lines, and resumed sessions copy earlier history in), subagent transcripts now roll their tokens and cost into the parent session, and 5-minute and 1-hour prompt-cache writes are priced at their separate published rates. The pricing table covers the current model lineup; models without a published price (local runtimes, unlisted vendors) count at $0 instead of a guess, and per-model rates can be set in ~/.claude/readout-pricing.json.

• Keyboard-first lists. Arrow through every list pane with clean focus handoff into the detail pane. Cmd-E edits, Cmd-C copies the selected item's path, and Delete removes it (with the page's own confirmation), all gated so they never interfere with text editing. Cmd-B joins Cmd-\ for toggling the sidebar.

• Completion sounds. Pick a completion chime from nine bundled sound packs in Settings, with preview; the chime now fires reliably even with the display off, and the celebration confetti has its own toggle.

• Menu bar, upgraded. Each live session now shows where it runs (CLI vs app), its real model name (third-party models shown verbatim), live uptime and agent counts, and errored turns are detected and surfaced.

• Collections as a native tree. Auto-expanding folders, click opens an item, caret collapses - browsing collections finally feels like Finder.

Improved

• Command palette. Result groups are ranked by their best match, so an exact hit surfaces first instead of hiding under a fixed category order; deep links scroll to their target, and long-keyword fuzzy matches are no longer dropped.
• Unified shell. Page titles sit in the toolbar band with a transparent full-height treatment (including full screen), every page shares the same edge insets, and Diffs, Home, and the menu bar surfaces got matching header fixes.
• Settings. Sections merged and reorganized (the Data tab folded into General, Launch at Login moved home), clearer copy, tighter footers, and friendlier time-of-day greetings on Home.
• Memory. Each memory file gets a menu: Show in Finder, or Delete with undo.
• Assistant. Prompts are grounded in your real data, including last-30-days spend, and the intro is a calm informational line.
• Window behavior. Closing the window keeps Cortex running in the menu bar (with a clear first-time choice), and reopening never spawns a duplicate window.
• Config. Filter MCP servers and plugins by origin, with short blurbs explaining each concept, and delete servers or plugins straight from their detail pages.
• AI summaries are now opt-in. Summaries default to Off: Apple Intelligence needs macOS 26 on Apple silicon, and the Claude engine spawns a session per summary, so neither runs unless you enable it in Settings. Onboarding no longer asks.
• Performance. Large, code-heavy detail views render instantly and colorize in the background; holding the arrow keys through a list no longer builds documents you are only scrubbing past.

Notes

• Built from source; the attached Cortex.dmg is unsigned (no Apple Developer ID). On first launch, right-click the app -> Open to get past Gatekeeper. Requires macOS 15+.

Cortex 1.2.0

Cortex 1.2.0

The biggest update yet: a time machine for every file Claude touched, one-tap workspace cleanup, full git + session diffs, and a top-to-bottom polish pass.

New

• Snapshots - a time machine for every file Claude edited. Claude Code quietly backs up every file it touches under ~/.claude/file-history, hashed and unreadable. Cortex resolves those hashes back to real paths, gathers every saved version of a file across all your sessions into one timeline, and shows a colored diff of any version against the current file or the one before it. Open any past version read-only - nothing is ever written back to disk.

• Hygiene - find and fix workspace cruft in one tap. A live scan surfaces what's quietly rotting: committed or unignored .env/secret files, dev servers still holding ports, stale branches, forgotten stashes, repos diverged from their remote, dead directories, and uncommitted work. Each finding comes with a confirmed one-tap fix - kill the process, delete the branch (with Undo), drop the stash, fast-forward pull, move to Trash - or a reveal for read-only items. Your Health & Security scores come from the same scan, so fixing things actually moves the number.

• Diffs - see exactly what changed. A working-tree browser lists every repo with uncommitted changes; pick one for its changed files, expand a file for its colored git diff (loaded lazily; untracked and binaries handled). A By Session tab shows which sessions changed which files, each expandable to its diff, with one-click Replay.

• Sessions & Replay - understand how the work happened. Sessions now carry codenames and AI-generated titles, a "Where You Run" breakdown (CLI / desktop / SDK), and a Skills & Tools panel that ranks the skills, MCP tools, plugins, and subagents that actually drove each session. Replay gains full-text search with match navigation and a hover-scrubbable timeline minimap.

• Repos - All / Local / GitHub, at a glance. A merged All tab pairs each local clone with its GitHub repo by exact owner/name, beside dedicated Local and GitHub tabs. A health strip up top (Dirty / Behind / Ahead / CLAUDE.md / skills) and per-row dirty dots show you where the mess is.

Improved

• App-wide feel. Every page cross-fades and scales in, list pages load skeleton-first then crossfade to content, bars and charts animate up from zero, the sidebar toggle is instant, and there's a pointer cursor on everything you can click.
• Home. A redesigned dashboard with AI-stack cards, a GitHub-style activity heatmap, and faceted (multi-select) project tables that deep-link straight into Repos. The Contributions stat now matches your GitHub profile graph exactly.
• On-device AI summaries. Session summaries default to Apple Intelligence: on-device, private, and no spawned Claude sessions. Engine choice lives in onboarding.
• Settings & Costs. The Setup pane moved into Settings, and the Costs page gained a "how this is calculated" explainer popover.
• Menu bar. Per-session and workflow live activity, plus a completion chime when a run finishes.

Notes

• Built from source; the attached Cortex.dmg is unsigned (no Apple Developer ID). On first launch, right-click the app -> Open to get past Gatekeeper. Requires macOS 15+.

Cortex 1.1.0

• Menu bar: live Claude usage limits (Session/Weekly %, reset timers, plan) with a click-to-open panel; optional global hotkey and launch at login.
• Live activity: see what Claude Code is doing now (Editing, Running command, Awaiting permission) with a turn timer, a green "Done" flash, and an optional completion chime. Opt-in (installs reversible Claude Code hooks).
• Usage page: daily-token chart, Today / 7d / 30d spend + token breakdown, and Antigravity alongside Claude and Codex.
• Costs: model breakdown now uses the shared table.
• Improved memory use: closing the main window releases its in-memory data, and Cmd-Q lets you keep Cortex running in the menu bar.
• Updates: in-app "Check for Updates".

The DMG is ad-hoc signed, not notarized: on first launch, right-click the app and choose Open, then Open. Or build from source.

Cortex 1.0.0-beta.1

First public beta of Cortex - a native macOS control center for your local AI coding stack (Claude Code sessions, costs, skills, agents, MCP servers, hooks, memory, repos, ports).

Install (unsigned beta)

Download Cortex-1.0.0-beta.1.dmg below, drag Cortex into Applications, then open the Terminal app and run this once:

xattr -cr /Applications/Cortex.app

The build is not notarized (that needs a paid Apple Developer account), so without this step macOS warns that Cortex "cannot be verified" or "is damaged." It is safe, just unsigned. GUI alternative: System Settings > Privacy & Security > "Open Anyway". Or build from source (see the README).

Highlights

• Home dashboard, Work Graph, Sessions with message-by-message replay, Live activity, Costs with monthly budget + alerts, and Usage limits.
• Library: Skills, Agents, Rules, Commands, MCP servers, Hooks, Memory, Instructions, Plugins.
• A Claude-backed Assistant that knows your stack, with streaming replies and in-app jumps.
• Keyboard shortcuts throughout: ⌘1-9 jump to sidebar pages (adapts to your sidebar order), ⌘F find, ⌘\ toggle sidebar, ⌘[ / ⌘] back / forward, ⌘L Assistant, ⌘N new item, ⌘⇧R rescan page, plus ⌘K palette and ⌘R refresh. Esc leaves Settings. All listed in Settings > Shortcuts.
• Health and Security scores, and a command palette (⌘K).
• Reliable Keychain access: Claude usage reads your token through the system security tool, so macOS asks permission once (click "Always Allow") instead of on every launch.
• Private by design: everything is read locally and read-only, nothing is ever sent anywhere.

Requires macOS 15+. Tool support is Claude Code-first with cross-tool discovery (see the README). Feedback and issues very welcome.