Volyx Lens

Private, context-aware assistance for your Mac.

Use your screen, voice, meeting audio, and saved Task Context without routing requests through a VolyxAI server. Bring your own AI provider and choose what leaves your Mac.

Explore the live site · Download for macOS · Product tour · Architecture · Privacy

_{Live product site: volyxlens.pages.dev}

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Important

Capture exclusion is best-effort, never guaranteed. Modern macOS capture tools may still show Volyx Lens, and a physical camera always can. Do not use hidden assistance where it violates exam, interview, workplace, platform, recording-consent, or local-law requirements. Volyx Lens is intended for legitimate personal notes, accessibility, study, practice, and permitted work.

Why Volyx Lens

Volyx Lens is a compact glass overlay that can use three intentionally separate inputs:

• Screen — screenshots are captured only for an explicit screen-based action.
• Microphone / “You” — your voice is transcribed on its own channel.
• System audio / “Them” — a native ScreenCaptureKit helper captures meeting audio on a separate channel.

Nothing is routed through a VolyxAI server. Provider requests go directly from the app to the AI or transcription provider you configure.

Highlights

• Screen-aware assistance — ask about the visible screen, a conversation, or both.
• Separated meeting transcript — stable timestamped You and Them turns.
• Task Context — save multiple screens locally, pin important captures, deduplicate near-identical views, and attach a bounded relevant set only when you explicitly ask.
• Provider choice — OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Azure Foundry, and DeepSeek for responses; OpenAI, Azure, Deepgram, or optional local Whisper for transcription.
• Personal context — import a resume/CV and job description with bounded extraction and relevance selection.
• Local controls — clear sessions, export transcripts, inspect sanitized diagnostics, and stop capture immediately.
• Native macOS behavior — compact draggable overlay, edge-aware expanded docking, Keychain-backed credential storage, and best-effort capture exclusion.

Product tour

These captures come from the current Electron UI test harness. Provider values shown in Settings are sanitized examples.

Guided onboarding — five focused steps for permissions, providers, sharing, and readiness.

Provider control — choose the default and fallback without exposing stored secrets to the renderer.

Download

Current test release: v0.3.1

The current public binaries are ad-hoc signed test builds. They are not signed with an Apple Developer ID certificate and are not notarized by Apple, so GitHub publishes them as a pre-release, not as a trusted production release.

Mac	Installer
Apple Silicon — M1, M2, M3, M4, or newer	Volyx-Lens-0.3.1-macOS-arm64-adhoc.dmg
Intel	Volyx-Lens-0.3.1-macOS-x64-adhoc.dmg

Open the v0.3.1 release and download the matching DMG →

SHA-256 checksum files and ZIP packages are included in the release.

Install the DMG

1. Download the DMG matching your Mac architecture.
2. Open it and drag Volyx Lens into Applications.
3. Because this test build is not notarized, macOS may block its first launch. In Finder, Control-click or right-click Volyx Lens, choose Open, then confirm Open.
4. Grant Microphone and Screen & System Audio Recording access when prompted.

Do not disable Gatekeeper globally. Ad-hoc builds cannot use the in-app updater; install later test releases manually. A normal one-click launch and trusted automatic update path requires an Apple Developer ID–signed and notarized release.

What it can do

Action	Trigger	Context used
Assist	⌘ ↵ or Assist	screen, conversation, or both — you choose
Solve what’s on screen	⌘ H	current screen
Add Task Context screen	⌘ ⇧ C or Add screen	local capture only; no AI request
What should I say?	action button	conversation transcript
Follow-up questions	action button	conversation transcript
Recap	action button	bounded meeting transcript
Ask anything	type and press ↵	selected screen/conversation context
New Session	/new or New Session	clears in-memory session context
Emergency quit	⌘ ⇧ X or power button	stops capture and clears session media context

The Smart toggle selects the configured higher-capability model. Settings reports whether each global shortcut registered successfully and keeps equivalent visible buttons available.

Setup

1. Grant macOS permissions

Volyx Lens requests only the permissions its capture features need; it does not request camera access.

• Microphone: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone
• Screen and meeting audio: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording

If access was previously denied, enable Volyx Lens in System Settings, then fully quit and reopen it. macOS associates permission grants with the effective app identity, so replacing an ad-hoc build can require granting access again.

2. Configure providers

Open Settings with ⌘ , or the … button. Choose a response provider, enter its key and model/deployment names, then select Use as default. An optional fallback provider is used only when it is capable of the request and the default fails before producing answer text.

Provider	Role	Configuration notes
OpenAI	responses + transcription	API key; compatible response and audio models
Anthropic	responses	API key; transcription requires another provider
Google Gemini	responses + batch transcription	Gemini API key
Azure Foundry	responses + realtime transcription	resource key, official resource endpoint, and exact deployment names
DeepSeek	text responses	screen analysis requires a vision-capable default/fallback
Deepgram	realtime transcription	dedicated key; Nova streaming models
Local Whisper	optional offline batch transcription	externally installed whisper-cli and model; disabled by default

Keys stay in the Electron main process and are protected with safeStorage / macOS Keychain where available. The renderer receives credential status, not stored secret values. Settings warns if secure storage is unavailable.

3. Configure Zoom capture filtering

For Zoom, select:

Settings → Share Screen → Advanced → Screen capture mode → Advanced capture with window filtering

This asks Zoom to respect Volyx Lens’s protected-window flag. It is still best-effort and may not work with every macOS or capture-tool version.

Task Context

Task Context is for work revealed across multiple screens—for example a problem statement, source files, and test output.

• Add screen saves a compressed capture in bounded process memory without contacting a provider.
• Exact SHA-256 and a local visual fingerprint reduce duplicate captures.
• Optional Apple Vision OCR runs locally and is used for overlap detection and relevance ranking; recognized text is not sent as a separate provider payload.
• Pinning protects important screens from ordinary eviction and prioritizes them for later requests.
• Remove, Undo last, Clear, and New Session provide explicit lifecycle control.
• A screen request attaches at most 39 saved screens plus the current screen. Before eight or more saved screens are uploaded, Volyx Lens shows the selected provider and image count and requires confirmation.
• Screens that are not selected remain local and are not presented as processed.

Task Context cannot read files or code that never appeared on screen. Use it only when external assistance is permitted.

How it works

Volyx Lens is an Electron application with a sandboxed renderer and a privileged main process:

1. Capture stays separated. Screens, microphone PCM, and system-audio PCM have distinct lifecycles.
2. Local controls run first. Permission checks, memory budgets, deduplication, OCR ranking, cancellation, and secure credential access happen locally.
3. The user triggers a request. Screen and transcript context is attached only for the selected action.
4. The main process routes directly. Requests go to the configured response or transcription provider—never through a VolyxAI intermediary.
5. Results stream into the overlay. Provider failures are reduced to sanitized, actionable states rather than exposing credentials or raw SDK errors.

Realtime microphone audio is deterministically resampled to 24 kHz mono PCM. System audio comes from a bundled ScreenCaptureKit helper and remains a separate Them channel. Optional local Whisper is operator-configured, disabled by default, and does not silently fall back to cloud transcription unless cloud fallback is separately enabled.

Privacy and security

• No VolyxAI account, intermediary server, or product telemetry. Selected third-party providers still receive the data required for explicit requests and apply their own terms and pricing.
• No persistent screenshots or audio. Volyx Lens keeps active session media in memory; New Session or emergency quit clears it.
• Bounded personal context. Imported documents store extracted text and status—not the original file path or raw document—and send only relevant bounded excerpts for answer-oriented actions.
• Sandboxed UI. Chromium sandboxing, context isolation, no renderer Node integration, restrictive CSP, denied popup/navigation requests, and bounded IPC payloads are enabled.
• Protected secrets. Credentials are accessed in the main process and use safeStorage / Keychain when available.
• Explicit expensive requests. Large multi-image requests and multi-part long-meeting recaps require confirmation.
• Best-effort capture exclusion. setContentProtection(true) / NSWindowSharingNone reduces accidental capture but is not a security guarantee.

Transcript workspace

While listening, confirmed provider chunks are grouped into timestamped You and Them turns. Partial text remains visually distinct and is replaced by confirmed text. The workspace can:

• copy one turn or the complete confirmed transcript;
• export TXT, Markdown, or structured JSON through a native save dialog;
• clear the session with confirmation;
• show sanitized diagnostics without keys, endpoints, raw audio, images, personal-context text, or transcript content.

Long answer requests use bounded recent context. Longer recaps use bounded part summaries and require confirmation before multiple paid provider requests are made.

Troubleshooting

macOS says the app is damaged or cannot be opened

Delete the copy and download the matching DMG from this repository’s release page again. Verify its SHA-256 checksum. For the current ad-hoc test build, use Finder’s Control-click/right-click → Open flow. Never disable Gatekeeper globally.

Permission is enabled but capture still fails

You may have granted permission to an older ad-hoc build. Toggle Volyx Lens off and on in the relevant Privacy & Security pane, then fully quit and reopen the current app. Rebuilt ad-hoc apps can receive a different effective identity.

Listening connects but no transcript appears

Verify the selected realtime provider and exact deployment/model configuration. For Azure, use the official resource endpoint, resource key, and exact realtime transcription deployment name. Stop listening before changing settings, then use Test Live Mic to send a bounded five-second sample and require a real transcript. Provider billing may apply.

Volyx Lens appears in a Zoom share

Select Advanced capture with window filtering in Zoom as shown above. Capture exclusion remains best-effort, especially on newer macOS capture paths.

Build from source

Requirements:

• macOS
• Node.js 20+ installed
• npm
• Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install) for native OCR and system-audio helpers

git clone https://github.com/dk3yyyy/volyx-lens.git
cd volyx-lens
npm ci
npm start

Run the verification suite:

npm test
npm run check:syntax
npm run security:secrets
npm audit --audit-level=low
npm run release:check

Create an unpacked local app:

npm run pack

Local builds are unsigned unless a valid signing identity is installed. Rebuilding can reset macOS permission grants.

Release integrity

The ad-hoc test workflow builds Apple Silicon and Intel artifacts on native GitHub-hosted macOS runners. Before uploading artifacts, it runs tests, syntax and secret checks, release-readiness checks, native-helper self-tests, ad-hoc signature verification, executable architecture checks, renderer smoke tests, DMG verification/mounting, and SHA-256 generation.

A trusted production release is a separate path. It fails closed unless Developer ID signing and Apple notarization credentials are available, and verifies signatures, notarization staples, Gatekeeper assessment, architecture-specific updater metadata, checksums, SBOMs, and build attestations before publication.

License

Copyright © 2026 Joshua Nwachinemere.

Volyx Lens is source-available under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0. Personal and other noncommercial use is permitted under its terms. Commercial use, resale, paid redistribution, or use in a commercial product or service requires a separate licence from VolyxAI.

Commercial licensing: joshua@volyxai.com

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Keep changes focused, preserve the privacy boundaries above, and include tests for behavior changes.