Squidpal
A local, open-source "workday diary" for your own computer. Squidpal is a
small menu-bar / tray app that records what you see and do on your own machine —
the apps you use, the windows and pages you open, the text on screen and what
you type — and writes it to plain text files in a folder you choose. The point
is to give your own AI assistant durable context about your day: follow-ups,
what you were working on, how things connect.
It runs on macOS, Windows and Linux, entirely locally. It makes no network
requests. Secrets are stripped out before anything is written to disk.
Status: early prototype, in alpha testing. Expect rough edges.
(User-visible names, the macOS bundle id io.squidler.squidpal, and the app/
binary names are all Squidpal. daylog lingers only as an internal code symbol —
the Swift module, the C# namespace, the Python package and the repo's source
folders — which can be renamed in a later pass without any user-facing effect.)
⚠️ Read this before you use it
Squidpal is a screen-activity recorder. Please understand what that means:
- It captures almost everything you look at and type — emails, chats, web
pages, documents — including messages other people send you. Those people did not choose to be recorded.
- It is your responsibility to use this lawfully and ethically. Recording
other people's communications may have legal implications where you live, and
may breach the terms of services you use. Squidpal is a personal tool for
logging your own activity on your own device; it is not for monitoring
anyone else.
- Everything stays on your computer, in the folder you pick. Squidpal never
uploads anything. If you choose a synced folder (iCloud, OneDrive, Google
Drive, Dropbox), the files go wherever that folder syncs — think about that.
- Secret redaction is best-effort, not a guarantee. Squidpal never reads
password fields or password managers, and it masks common secret formats
(API keys, card numbers, national ID numbers, one-time codes) before writing.
But it is pattern-based and will miss things. Treat the log files as
sensitive.
- The app always shows clearly in the menu bar / tray whether it is recording
or paused, and you can pause it at any time.
See docs/PRIVACY.md for the full picture.
How it works
Each platform has its own reader for the OS accessibility layer — the same
technology screen readers use — plus a shared design for redaction and the
output format:
flowchart LR
subgraph R1["Per-platform reader — reads the active window: text, focus, URL"]
direction TB
M["macOS · Accessibility API"]
W["Windows · UI Automation"]
L["Linux · AT-SPI"]
end
M --> RD
W --> RD
L --> RD
RD["Redactor<br/>strip secrets<br/>identical rules on every platform"] --> J["JSONL day files<br/>one line per event · append-only"]
The redaction rules are identical across all three platforms and are tested
against one shared set of fixtures (shared/redaction-fixtures.json),
so masking cannot silently drift between macOS, Windows and Linux.
Platforms
| Platform | Reads via | UI | Language | Notes |
|---|
| macOS 14+ | Accessibility API (AXUIElement) | Menu-bar (SwiftUI) | Swift | Needs Accessibility permission. |
| Windows 10/11 | UI Automation (FlaUI) | System tray (WinForms) | C# / .NET 8 | No permission prompt; Chrome/Edge read best. |
| Linux | AT-SPI (pyatspi) | AppIndicator tray | Python / GTK 3 | Works under X11 and Wayland. GNOME needs the AppIndicator extension. |
Each has its own build and run instructions:
Quick start
The fastest way to see something real is the redaction self-test — it needs no
GUI and no accessibility permissions:
# Linux / macOS (Python 3):
python3 linux/selftest.py
# Windows / anywhere with .NET 8:
dotnet run --project windows/src/DayLog.SelfTest -c Release -- shared/redaction-fixtures.json
# macOS, with the Swift toolchain:
cd macos && ./build.sh test
All three run the same cases from shared/redaction-fixtures.json and should
report the same result.
Then build the app for your platform from its README above.
Repository layout
squidpal/
├── macos/ Swift package — menu-bar app + redactor core + tests
├── windows/ .NET 8 solution — tray app + core + self-test
├── linux/ Python package — tray app + core + self-test
├── shared/ redaction-fixtures.json — the one source of truth for masking
├── docs/ file format, redaction, privacy
└── .github/ CI (runs all three test suites) and templates
Contributing
Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md. The golden
rule: any change to redaction must keep all platforms passing the shared
fixtures, and new masking behavior needs a new fixture.
Security
To report a vulnerability or a case where Squidpal writes a secret it should have
masked, see SECURITY.md. Please don't open a public issue with a
real secret in it.
License
MIT © 2026 Squidler AB.
