Tripwire 0.2.0 — Early preview

Free, MIT-licensed native macOS menu-bar tamper alarm. No account, backend, or paywall.

Install

Requires macOS 14+ and a built-in camera. The ZIP includes Apple silicon and Intel binaries.

brew install --cask karnstack/tap/tripwire
open -a Tripwire

Or download the ZIP below, unzip, and drag Tripwire.app to Applications.

This preview is ad-hoc signed, NOT Apple-notarized. If macOS blocks a download you trust, first try opening it, then use System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway. Follow Apple guidance. No installer disables Gatekeeper or removes quarantine.

Included

• Menu-bar control, global shortcut, five-second arming delay.
• Keyboard/mouse/trackpad, charger-removal, and wake monitoring.
• Experimental hinge-angle and chassis-motion sensing on compatible Macs. Use the silent Check button before relying on these undocumented hardware reports.
• Looping siren, three-photo capture attempt, private local event JSON, authenticated disarm.
• Simplified README and detailed testing/distribution notes.

Validation and limits

38 automated tests pass; macOS CI passes; both CPU architectures build. Live lid angles, accelerometer readings, and a hinge-change detection were observed on Mac16,5 with macOS 26.5.1, without sudo. Other hardware compatibility and full attended siren/camera/authentication/sleep tests are not yet verified.

Actual sleep pauses the app, alarm, and camera. Keep the lid open. Input/camera restrictions, force quit, shutdown, and power loss can defeat protection. This is a deterrent, not a theft-proof guarantee. Grant Camera and Input Monitoring at first launch and quit/reopen when prompted.

See the manual checklist and API research.