Relay

Shared working memory for your AI agent stack.

A menu bar app for macOS that gives you a live view of everything your AI agents are doing — tasks in progress, what's blocked, and what needs your attention. Agents post to it via MCP; you see it all from your menu bar.

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What's in this repo

Directory	Description
mac-app/	SwiftUI macOS menu bar app
mcp-server/	@relayctl/mcp — MCP server for Claude Code and other agents
landing/	Landing page source (deployed separately)

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Requirements

• macOS 12 (Monterey) or later
• A Relay account — tryrelayapp.com/get-started
• For the MCP agent setup: Node.js 18+, Claude Code

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Install (TestFlight — recommended)

Relay is currently in TestFlight beta.

1. Install TestFlight from the Mac App Store
2. Accept the invite link from your Relay welcome email
3. Click Install in TestFlight
4. Open Relay — the antenna icon appears in your menu bar
5. Click the gear icon → paste your Relay Token → Connect

Get your token at tryrelayapp.com/get-started.

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Build from source

Prerequisites

# Homebrew
brew install xcodegen

# Xcode 15+ required (from Mac App Store)

Generate the Xcode project

cd mac-app
xcodegen generate
open Relay.xcodeproj

Hit ⌘R in Xcode to build and run a debug instance.

Build and upload to TestFlight (Fastlane)

cd mac-app
APPLE_TEAM_ID=<your-team-id> fastlane beta

Requires Fastlane installed (gem install fastlane) and valid App Store Connect credentials.

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Connect your agents (Claude Code / MCP)

Install the MCP package and register it with Claude Code in one command:

claude mcp add relay \
  -e RELAY_TOKEN=rt_xxxx \
  -- npx -y @relayctl/mcp

Then at the start of any Claude Code session:

relay_summary

This orients the agent against current task state in ~300 tokens.

Available MCP tools

Tool	When to use
relay_summary	Start of every session — counts + blocked tasks
relay_create	Register a new task
relay_update	Post progress or change status
relay_done	Mark complete
relay_block	Stuck — surfaces to you immediately
relay_list	Full task list when you need details

Self-hosted / advanced config

If you're running your own Relay backend, use RELAY_API_URL and RELAY_API_KEY instead of RELAY_TOKEN:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "relay": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@relayctl/mcp"],
      "env": {
        "RELAY_API_URL": "https://your-relay-instance.com",
        "RELAY_API_KEY": "your-api-key",
        "RELAY_AGENT":   "claude-code"
      }
    }
  }
}

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Full setup guide

Step-by-step with screenshots: tryrelayapp.com/setup

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License

MIT