Desktop Overlay
A native macOS panel that floats above every window and shows live system metrics.
Overview
A small floating panel that stays on top of every other window and shows what's happening inside the machine right now: CPU, memory, disk I/O, network throughput, thermal state, and — on Intel Macs — CPU temperature and fan speed.
Problem
Finding out why a machine has slowed down usually means stopping what you're doing to open Activity Monitor, then closing it and going back. The information you need for one second costs a full context switch.
Solution
Instead of an app you open on demand, a small always-present panel you read at a glance without leaving what you're doing. Since it runs continuously, the first design constraint was that it must have no felt impact on the machine.
Results
An open-source (MIT) alternative to tools like iStat Menus, MenuMeters and Stats — around 0.3% CPU and 45 MB of RAM while idle, available as a pre-built download or to build from source.
Built with
- Fully native: Swift, SwiftUI and AppKit — no Electron, no web view, no third-party dependencies.
- Local only: no network connections, no database, no telemetry; settings live in UserDefaults.
- An isolated, opt-in module reads SMC sensors (CPU temperature, fan RPM) on Intel Macs; everything else uses public system APIs.
- The Xcode project is generated from project.yml via XcodeGen, with scripts for building, installing and packaging a release.