Tapdeck
One-tap Mac tools in Control Center and the menu bar. Built for people who vibe code and just want things to work.
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Tapdeck has no window, no Dock icon and no settings. Its tools show up as native controls you add to Control Center or pin to the menu bar, and as actions in Spotlight and the Shortcuts app.
Tools
Lights Out
Turns off the screen and keyboard light while the Mac keeps running, so a long agent run, build or download continues in the dark.
- Remembers the exact display brightness, keyboard light and "Adjust keyboard brightness in low light" setting first.
- Sets brightness to 0 and paints the screen black (on mini-LED panels the backlight zones actually switch off).
- Keeps the Mac and display from idling to sleep, so work isn't interrupted and you don't land on the lock screen.
- The first touch of the trackpad, mouse or any key brings everything back exactly as it was.
- Needs no permissions: no Accessibility, no Input Monitoring.
Stay Awake
A toggle that keeps the Mac running, even with the lid closed. It's the same as:
sudo pmset -a disablesleep 1 # on
sudo pmset -a disablesleep 0 # off
- ☀️ Won't Sleep: the Mac stays on, lid open or closed. 🌙 Sleeps Normally: regular macOS sleep.
- It always reads the real system state, so it stays correct even if you change the setting from Terminal.
- Changing the setting needs root, so a tiny helper does it. The helper can only run
pmset -a disablesleep 0|1 and only accepts calls from Tapdeck signed by the same team. macOS asks you to approve it once.
Don't carry a closed Mac in a bag with Stay Awake on. It keeps running, gets warm and drains the battery.
Check it from Terminal:
pmset -g | grep SleepDisabled # 1 = on, 0 = off
pmset -g stats # Sleep Count stays the same if the Mac never slept
Mic Mute
A toggle that mutes every microphone at once, the way the mute button on an external mic does.
- Flips each microphone's own hardware mute switch. Apps keep their audio stream and their permission and receive exact digital silence; nothing is revoked, paused or restarted.
- Tap again and sound flows immediately. Red struck-through mic = Muted, plain mic = On.
- Microphones that connect while muted are muted too, and the mute holds even if Tapdeck quits.
- If another app turns the mic back on, the toggle follows.
- Needs no permissions. It never listens to the microphone.
- Some inputs, such as an iPhone used through Continuity or a virtual mic from a recording app, have no mute or volume control. If the input in use is one of them, Tapdeck says so instead of showing a mute that isn't real.
Tapdeck --status lists every input and whether it can be muted.
Install
- Download Tapdeck.dmg and drag Tapdeck into Applications.
- Open it. This build isn't notarized yet, so the first time macOS says it can't verify Tapdeck: click Done, then System Settings › Privacy & Security › Open Anyway.
- Open Control Center › Edit Controls › Tapdeck and drag Lights Out, Stay Awake and Mic Mute into Control Center, or up into the menu bar.
- The first time you tap Stay Awake, click Open System Settings and turn on Tapdeck under General › Login Items & Extensions › Allow in the Background.
Spotlight: press ⌘ Space and type Lights Out, Toggle Stay Awake or Toggle Mic Mute. For a keyboard shortcut (a mute key, say), add the action to a shortcut in the Shortcuts app and choose Add Keyboard Shortcut.
Requires macOS 26 Tahoe or later. Universal (Apple silicon and Intel).
Updating
Tapdeck keeps running in the background, so Finder says the item “Tapdeck” is in use if you replace it directly. Quit it first:
pkill -x Tapdeck; pkill -x TapdeckControls
Then drag the new Tapdeck into Applications, choose Replace, and open it. Your settings and Control Center buttons stay as they are.
If a new tool doesn't show up in Edit Controls afterwards, or a button looks old, macOS is still using an older copy of Tapdeck it remembers (in Downloads, the Trash or an old disk image). This makes it forget every copy outside Applications and reload the buttons:
LSR=/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister
pkill -x Tapdeck; pkill -x TapdeckControls
"$LSR" -dump | grep -E "^path: +/.*/Tapdeck\.app( |$)" | sed -E 's/^path: +//; s/ \(0x[0-9a-f]+\)$//' | sort -u | grep -v "^/Applications/Tapdeck.app$" | while read -r old; do echo "Forgetting old copy: $old"; "$LSR" -u "$old"; done
"$LSR" -f /Applications/Tapdeck.app
pluginkit -a /Applications/Tapdeck.app/Contents/PlugIns/TapdeckControls.appex
killall chronod
open /Applications/Tapdeck.app
echo "Tapdeck version: $(defaults read /Applications/Tapdeck.app/Contents/Info.plist CFBundleShortVersionString)"
The last line should show the version you installed. If it shows an older one, the new Tapdeck never reached Applications: download it again and drag it in.
Terminal and browser extensions
Every tool can also be read and switched from outside Control Center, with no server running:
/Applications/Tapdeck.app/Contents/MacOS/Tapdeck install-cli # once: adds `tapdeck` to ~/.local/bin
tapdeck status --json
tapdeck mic toggle
tapdeck awake on
tapdeck lights out
Browser extensions reach Tapdeck through Chrome's native messaging: run tapdeck chrome install, then load the sample extension (download the zip, or use extensions/chrome). Its popup shows all three tools, and Alt+Shift+M toggles the mic.
The full guide, with every command, the JSON format, building your own extension and troubleshooting, is in docs/integrations.md.
Build from source
Requires Xcode 26 or later and an Apple Development certificate. Put your Team ID in a local config file (git ignores it):
cp Config/Local.xcconfig.example Config/Local.xcconfig # then edit DEVELOPMENT_TEAM
./scripts/install.sh
| Script | What it does |
|---|
scripts/build.sh | Builds Tapdeck.app (Release, universal) with a fresh build number |
scripts/install.sh | Builds, installs to /Applications and registers the controls |
scripts/make-dmg.sh | Builds dist/Tapdeck-<version>.dmg, dist/Tapdeck.dmg and dist/tapdeck-chrome-extension.zip for a release |
scripts/make-icon.swift | Draws the app icon and the website icons |
Every build gets a new build number because WidgetKit caches each extension's list of controls by build number. install.sh also stops the old extension process so Control Center redraws with the new code.
Release
./scripts/make-dmg.sh
gh release create v1.2 dist/Tapdeck.dmg dist/tapdeck-chrome-extension.zip --title "Tapdeck 1.2"
The website's download buttons point to releases/latest/download/Tapdeck.dmg, so they always serve the newest release.
Website
The landing page is site/index.html (English and Arabic, light and dark). .github/workflows/pages.yml publishes it to GitHub Pages on every push that changes site/. To preview it locally:
python3 -m http.server 8765 --directory site
How it works
App/ The app (not sandboxed). Does the real work.
Features/ One folder per tool: LightsOut, StayAwake, MicMute
Hardware/ Display brightness, keyboard light, input activity, root helper client
AppShortcuts.swift Spotlight and Shortcuts actions
ControlsExtension/ WidgetKit extension with the Control Center controls
Shared/ Code in both the app and the extension: TapdeckAction, ControlKind, App Intents, AudioInputs
Helper/ TapdeckHelper, the root launchd daemon (SMAppService)
HelperInterface/ XPC protocol shared by the app and the helper
Config/ Info.plists, entitlements, the helper's launchd plist, Signing.xcconfig
site/ The landing page
On macOS 26, a control's intent runs inside the sandboxed, short-lived widget extension. It can't touch hardware or keep watching for input, so it hands the action to the app by opening tapdeck://<action> in the background. The app launches if needed, never takes focus, and does the work.
Adding a tool
- Add a case to
TapdeckAction in Shared/TapdeckAction.swift.
- Handle it in
App/TapdeckActionHandler.swift, ideally in its own folder under App/Features/.
- Add an intent in
Shared/Intents/ that calls TapdeckAction.<case>.run().
- Add a
ControlKind, a ControlWidget in ControlsExtension/Controls/, and list it in TapdeckBundle.
- Optionally add it to
App/AppShortcuts.swift and give it a card on the website.
Anything that needs root becomes a new, narrowly scoped method on TapdeckHelperProtocol, never "run this command".
Troubleshooting
/Applications/Tapdeck.app/Contents/MacOS/Tapdeck --status
Prints what Tapdeck can see and control (displays, brightness, keyboard light, Stay Awake, helper approval, every microphone and whether it can be muted) without changing anything.
/usr/bin/log show --last 10m --style compact --predicate 'subsystem == "com.ibtkrgo.Tapdeck"'
Logs from the app, the extension and the helper. In zsh, log is a shell builtin, so use the full path.
To uninstall: turn Stay Awake and Mic Mute off, run Tapdeck --unregister-helper (same path as above), quit with pkill -x Tapdeck, and move the app to the Trash.
Notes
- Display brightness and keyboard light use Apple's private
DisplayServices and CoreBrightness frameworks. That rules out the Mac App Store and may break with a macOS update; --status shows it right away.
- External displays without brightness control are painted black but keep their backlight on.
- Builds are signed with an Apple Development certificate and aren't notarized, hence the one-time Open Anyway step. A Developer ID signature plus notarization would remove it.
License
MIT. See LICENSE.
