DailyNotchWork in progress

A macOS notch app that turns the space around your MacBook's notch into a focus timer and to-do list. Hover the notch to see today's tasks and a month of focus, start a block with one click, and watch a progress line fill up around the notch while you work.

Native SwiftUI + AppKit. macOS 14+. English and Brazilian Portuguese.

Install

• Download: the notarized DailyNotch-X.Y.Z.dmg from Releases. Open it and drag DailyNotch to Applications. It is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it opens without warnings.
• Mac App Store: coming soon.

The download build checks GitHub for new versions and offers them in the menu bar and in Settings > About. The App Store build updates through the store.

Features

• Focus in the notch - the countdown and the running task sit on either side of the notch, and a progress line wraps around it and fills up as the block runs. Minimal mode shows only the line; an optional RGB line glows.
• Hover dashboard - today's tasks (check off, start, drag to reorder, change the length inline) next to a month-long activity grid.
• Tasks window - month calendar with dots on days that have open tasks, Day / Unscheduled lists, notes, quick add (⌘N) and per-task focus lengths.
• Focus engine - counts down from a wall-clock deadline, so sleep and a busy Mac don't throw it off. Pauses don't count as focus time. Editing a running task's length re-bases the block.
• Settings - a PrimoDock-style window with search: focus length, notch style, display, alerts, calendar, general, shortcuts and about.
• Calendar - the day's events under your tasks, read-only via EventKit.
• Global hotkey - ⌘⇧Space starts or stops focus from any app (can be switched off in Settings).
• Multiple displays - pick the screen the notch appears on; screens without a notch get a small pill at the top center.
• Menu bar - hourglass icon: Open Tasks, Start/Stop focus, Settings, Quit. No Dock icon until a window is open.
• Private - no account, no analytics. Everything is saved in one JSON file in the app's sandbox container. See PRIVACY.md.

Build & run

open DailyNotch.xcodeproj   # then Cmd+R in Xcode

or from the command line:

xcodebuild -project DailyNotch.xcodeproj -scheme DailyNotch -configuration Release build

The app runs as a menu-bar / notch agent. Look for the hourglass in the menu bar, then hover your notch to open the dashboard.

Scripts

./scripts/run.sh            # build (Debug) and (re)launch
./scripts/run.sh release    # build Release and launch
./scripts/wipe.sh           # completely remove the app, data, and prefs from this Mac
./scripts/wipe.sh -y        # ... without the confirmation prompt

wipe.sh removes the built app, ~/Library/Application Support/DailyNotch, preferences, caches, and any installed copy. It does not touch this repo.

Releasing

./scripts/create-dmg.sh          # Developer ID signed + notarized build/DailyNotch-X.Y.Z.dmg
./scripts/appstore.sh            # App Store archive, exported to build/appstore
./scripts/appstore.sh --upload   # ... and uploaded to App Store Connect

create-dmg.sh reads DAILYNOTCH_SIGN_IDENTITY and DAILYNOTCH_NOTARY_PROFILE from the environment or a git-ignored .env.local. Bump MARKETING_VERSION and CURRENT_PROJECT_VERSION in the Xcode project first. The App Store listing text lives in appstore/LISTING.md.

Screenshots are rendered from the app itself: the Debug build has a snapshot mode that draws every window with demo data (see DailyNotch/App/Snapshots.swift), and appstore/screenshots/compose.swift lays them out for the store (--readme for docs/images).

Hotkey

Cmd+Shift+Space - toggle the active focus session.

If the day has at least one unfinished task, the first one starts. If the day is empty, a blank session starts using the current focusMinutes setting. Press the shortcut again to stop.

The hotkey is registered via Carbon's RegisterEventHotKey (see DailyNotch/Focus/GlobalHotkey.swift), so it works from any app, not just when DailyNotch is focused.

Architecture

DailyNotch/
+- App/           NSApplication wiring, borderless notch panel, view model, focus menu state
+- Models/        Task, FocusSession, FocusSettings, Store (JSON persistence)
+- Focus/         FocusTimer (focus engine), GlobalHotkey, NotificationService
+- Notch/         Collapsed pill + expanded dashboard (to-do + activity heatmap)
+- Tasks/         Tasks window (calendar + list + add form), TaskRow, FocusTimePicker
+- Settings/      Settings window (sidebar + pages), SettingsKit, LaunchAtLoginController
+- Sync/          CalendarService (EventKit, read-only) + CalendarAuthModel
+- Design/        Theme tokens + rounded-bottom NotchShape
+- Assets.xcassets/   App icon (hourglass on black, system accent)

Key pieces:

• NotchWindowController hangs a borderless, non-activating NSPanel from the top-center of the screen, straddling the hardware notch, and re-anchors it (top-center) as the SwiftUI content expands/collapses.
• NotchMetrics reads the real notch width via NSScreen.auxiliaryTopLeftArea / auxiliaryTopRightArea, falling back to a synthetic pill on non-notched Macs.
• Store is the single @MainActor source of truth, persisted to disk. Tasks sort with undone before done, then by user-controlled sortOrder, then by createdAt as a stable tiebreaker.
• NotificationService wraps UNUserNotificationCenter and posts a single 'focus block complete' notification with the task title in the body.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. A few conventions to keep the project consistent:

• Commits follow Conventional Commits: feat(scope): ..., fix(scope): ..., refactor(scope): ..., chore(scope): ..., polish(scope): ..., docs(scope): ..., ci(scope): .... Scope is the folder or layer (focus, notch, tasks, store, app, ci, etc). One logical change per commit.
• No em-dashes or en-dashes in code, comments, commit messages, or docs. Use - (hyphen with surrounding spaces) for parenthetical asides. The same rule applies to user-facing strings shown in the app.
• CHANGELOG is written at release time from the commit messages (cliff.toml holds the git-cliff config). You do not need to touch CHANGELOG.md in your PR.
• Before opening a PR, run a clean Debug build locally and exercise the area you touched. The build workflow runs on every pull request and push to main; a green check is the easiest way to know it's good.
• App icon is drawn by scripts/generate-icon.swift, which writes every size into DailyNotch/Assets.xcassets/AppIcon.appiconset/. Change the script, not the PNGs.

Project file format

The .xcodeproj uses Xcode 16.3's PBXFileSystemSynchronizedRootGroup, which means the DailyNotch/ folder is auto-synced. You should rarely need to edit project.pbxproj directly - new files dropped into the folder are picked up automatically.

License

MIT - see LICENSE.