⚡️ Lightning Launcher

A fast macOS application launcher.

Features

• Instant search — Fuzzy matching with typo tolerance across all installed apps
• Smart ranking — Frecency tracking with adaptive per-query learning
• Real-time monitoring — Detects newly installed/removed apps within seconds
• Configurable — Custom search paths

Quick Start

# Build and run
just run

# Create Lightning.app bundle
just bundle

Usage

Launch in a new window (Cmd+Return)

Plain Return activates the app, bringing an existing window forward — which, under focus-following window managers like AeroSpace, switches you to whatever workspace that window lives in.

Cmd+Return instead opens a new window of the app in your current Space. The first time you do this for a given app, macOS asks permission for Lightning to control it (Automation) — approve it once and it works from then on. Apps that don't support scripted new windows fall back to opening a fresh instance.

Development

mise install     # Install dev tools (swiftlint, swiftformat)
just build       # Debug build
just release     # Release build
just test        # Run unit tests
just lint        # Lint Swift sources
just format      # Format Swift sources
just clean       # Clean build artifacts
just bundle      # Create .app bundle

Requirements

• macOS 13.0+
• Swift 5.9+
• mise (for dev tools)