Black Hole 0.2.5

A fix for 0.2.4: the Spotify card could never ask for the permission it needs.

Fixed

Spotify playback now works. 0.2.4 shipped without the Apple events entitlement and usage string, so macOS refused to send the event at all — silently, without ever asking. Black Hole never appeared under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation, and the card sat there reporting missing permission with no way to grant it. Both are in place now, so opening the workspace with Spotify running asks properly, once.

Black Hole also no longer asks Spotify anything until you actually open the workspace.

If you installed 0.2.4, update — the card cannot work on that build.

Install

Download BlackHole.dmg below. Builds are not notarized yet, so on first launch open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.

Full Changelog: v0.2.4...v0.2.5

Black Hole 0.2.4

Spotify lands in the workspace.

New

Spotify playback. A fifth card shows what is playing — artwork, track, artist — with previous, play/pause and next. It talks to the Spotify app already running on your Mac, the way the menu bar does, so there is no login, no API key and no account. macOS will ask once for permission to control Spotify; the card tells you plainly if that permission is missing rather than sitting there looking broken.

Nothing is asked of Spotify until you open the workspace, and nothing at all while Spotify is closed.

The card row widened to make space, so the panel is a little wider than before.

Install

Download BlackHole.dmg below. Builds are not notarized yet, so on first launch open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.

Full Changelog: v0.2.3...v0.2.4

Black Hole 0.2.3

Your next meeting now lives in the notch — plus a fix for a timer that would not leave.

New

The notch counts down to your next meeting. Five minutes before it starts, the notch shows what is next and how long you have. Click it and the call opens — Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex and the rest, found wherever the invite hid the link (Google fills in the event URL, Outlook buries it in the body, people paste it into the location by hand). Right-click to dismiss one. A running focus timer still wins, and meetings let go of the notch ten minutes after they start.

The join link also shows up in the Events card, and in the todays_events MCP tool — so an assistant asked what is next can hand you the link.

Fixed

A finished timer no longer sits in the notch forever. When a countdown ran out, the session was saved as finished and restored as finished on the next launch, so 00:00 stayed parked in the notch days later with nothing to click. It now closes on launch, keeping the session in your history with its real end time. A paused timer still comes back, because that one is deliberate.

Tailscale Funnel works again. The host check added in 0.2.2 rejected Funnel traffic, which broke the default provider for anyone with Tailscale installed.

Hosted access recovers from a port conflict. If something else held port 52321, Black Hole saved the fallback port forever and hosted access stayed broken even after the conflict was gone.

A meeting no longer blocks the workspace. With a meeting due, opening the panel put an invisible tap target over every card, tab and the close button.

Install

Download BlackHole.dmg below. Builds are not notarized yet, so on first launch open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.

Full Changelog: v0.2.2...v0.2.3

Black Hole 0.2.2

A security release. If you use AI access, update.

Fixed

A website could have driven your planner. The local MCP endpoint checked the browser's Origin by prefix, so a name like localhost.attacker.com passed, and a request with no Origin skipped the check entirely. Nothing looked at Host, which is what actually stops DNS rebinding. A page could have pointed a short-TTL name at 127.0.0.1 and become same-origin with Black Hole. Local requests now need a loopback Host, and an Origin, when present, has to match exactly.

Your public address could have pointed at another app. If port 52321 was taken, Black Hole moved to the next free port but still published its mcp-*.getblackhole.app address — which stayed pinned to 52321. Assistant requests, access token included, would have gone to whatever else held that port. It now refuses to turn on and tells you the port is busy.

Anyone could mint an address on the project's domain. Registering one is now gated behind a proof of work, and the service's diagnostics endpoint is no longer public.

Also

• The README now says plainly that your access token travels in the URL path, so it is visible to whoever runs the edge it crosses. With Tailscale installed, the tunnel stays inside your own tailnet instead.

Install

Download BlackHole.dmg below. Builds aren't notarized yet, so on first launch open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.

Full Changelog: v0.2.1...v0.2.2

Black Hole 0.2.1: one address for every AI app

One address, every AI app 🌐

Turn on AI access (MCP) in Settings and Black Hole gets its own permanent web address, like mcp-a7f3.getblackhole.app. Copy it once and paste it into claude.ai, ChatGPT, Claude Code or Cursor; it keeps working after restarts, and there's nothing to install.

"Add my three most urgent GitHub issues to today"
"Start a 45-minute focus session on the launch post"
"What did I focus on this week?"

Also new

• Live timer island: while a focus session runs, the notch grows sideways with a progress ring and the countdown, on the notch's own line.
• New floating button: a frosted glass black hole. It shows the time during focus, and Holey's face appears on hover, when you finish something, when he's sleepy, or in an occasional peek.
• Holey's moods across the app: happy when you complete a task, focused during a session, asleep when you've been away.
• Search your tasks from the card header.
• Wider timer and notepad so the clock and your notes have room.
• Focusing a task with no time limit counts up instead of assuming 25 minutes.
• Fixed the dashboard window opening far too tall.

For contributors

SwiftLint, SwiftFormat, a pre-commit hook (make setup) and a CI lint job, so a PR that's clean locally is clean on GitHub. The enrollment service that hands out addresses lives in server/, and the website in web/.

Install

Download BlackHole-0.2.1.dmg below and drag Black Hole into Applications. Not notarized by Apple yet, so on first launch use System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway, or run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Black Hole.app"

Requires macOS 14+ on Apple silicon. Website: https://getblackhole.app

Black Hole 0.2.0: works with AI assistants

Black Hole now works with AI assistants 🤖

Turn on the built-in MCP server and Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop or any MCP client can work with your day:

"Add my three most urgent GitHub issues to today"
"Start a 45-minute focus session on the launch post"
"What did I focus on this week?"

How to set it up

1. Open Black Hole → Settings → AI & Data and turn on MCP server.
2. Click Copy setup for… and choose Claude Code, Cursor or Claude Desktop.
3. Paste it where the README says.

Tools

• Tasks: list_tasks, add_task, update_task, delete_task
• Focus timer: start_focus, pause_focus, resume_focus, stop_focus, focus_status
• Notepad: read_note, append_note (never overwrites)
• Insights and calendar: get_insights, todays_events

Changes show up in the notch instantly.

Privacy and security

• Off by default.
• Listens only on 127.0.0.1 and requires a secret token.
• Requests from websites are rejected.
• Nothing leaves your Mac.

Also in this release

• Claude Desktop support through the bundled blackhole-mcp command, which launches Black Hole if needed
• The notepad now shows edits made elsewhere (like an assistant appending a line) without losing what you're typing
• Fixed the dashboard window opening far too tall

Install

Download BlackHole-0.2.0.dmg below and drag Black Hole into Applications. This build isn't notarized yet, so on first launch use System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway, or run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Black Hole.app"

Requires macOS 14+ on Apple silicon.

Black Hole 0.1.1

What's new

• Live timer island: while a focus session runs, the notch grows sideways into a Dynamic Island-style timer, with a gradient progress ring on the left and a rolling countdown on the right.
• Smoother, macOS-style animation: the workspace grows out of the notch with a gentle spring, and the cards scale in together with the shape.
• New floating button: a minimal frosted-glass black hole. During focus it shows the time with a progress ring, and Holey's face appears on hover, when you finish something, when he's sleepy, and in the occasional peek.
• Holey's moods: happy when you complete tasks, determined during focus, sleepy when you've been away.
• All your calendars: iCloud, multiple Google accounts, Outlook/Exchange and subscribed calendars, color-coded, with a per-calendar picker in Settings.

Install

Download BlackHole-0.1.1.dmg below and drag Black Hole into Applications. This build isn't notarized yet, so on first launch use System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway, or run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Black Hole.app"

Requires macOS 14+ on Apple silicon.

Black Hole 0.1.0

The first public release of Black Hole: your whole day, one hover away.

What's inside

• Notch workspace: hover the notch or press ⌥N for today's tasks, a focus timer, a daily notepad and your calendar
• Tasks: add, complete, drag to reorder, time limits, reminders, move to tomorrow, automatic roll-over
• Focus timer: countdown or stopwatch, pause/resume, +5 min, live countdown in the notch
• Daily notepad: autosaves; ⌘↩ turns a line into a task
• Calendars: iCloud, Google (multiple accounts), Outlook/Exchange and subscribed calendars, color-coded, with a per-calendar picker
• Insights: focus time, completed vs. planned, active days, streak
• Floating button: drag it to any display; click to open the workspace right next to it
• Holey the mascot: blinks, cheers, focuses and naps with you

Install

1. Download BlackHole-0.1.0.dmg below and drag Black Hole into Applications.
2. This build isn't notarized yet, so on first launch open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway, or run:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Black Hole.app"
   

Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later on Apple silicon.

Coming next

An MCP server so Claude, Cursor and other AI assistants can plan your day, then bring-your-own-backend multi-device sync. See the roadmap.