MenuBarKit has the parts every macOS menu bar app needs, so you can write the part that is yours: a menu bar window with a header, sections, rows and a Settings/Quit footer, a settings window with General, Shortcuts and About tabs, Open at Login, a global keyboard shortcut the user can change, and an update prompt fed by a JSON file. Buttons use Liquid Glass on macOS 26; everything runs on macOS 14.

@main
struct TempoApp: App {
    var body: some Scene {
        MenuBarApp("Tempo", systemImage: "timer", statusTitle: "18:42") {
            MenuBarPanel("Tempo", subtitle: "Paused · 18:42 left", systemImage: "timer", tint: .orange) {
                MenuBarSection("Timer") {
                    MenuBarRow("Resume", systemImage: "play.fill", tint: .orange, value: "18:42") { … }
                }
            }
        }
        Settings {
            SettingsPane { Toggle("Play a sound", isOn: $playsSound) }
        }
    }
}

Screenshots

Rendered from the example app on macOS 26 by CI.

Menu bar panel	Settings

Global shortcuts	Update prompt

Features

• Menu bar scene (MenuBarApp): MenuBarExtra with the .window style, an SF Symbol plus optional short text such as a countdown, and an optional isInserted binding.
• Panel scaffold (MenuBarPanel): a header with an icon tile, a title, a status line and an accessory; MenuBarSections of MenuBarRows (icon, title, subtitle, value, hover highlight) and MenuBarToggleRows (a switch); a footer with Settings…, the app version and Quit, with ⌘, and ⌘Q.
• Settings window (SettingsPane): General, Shortcuts and About tabs. The General tab ends with an Open at Login switch; the About tab reads the name, version, build and copyright from the Info.plist and shows your links.
• Open at Login (LaunchAtLogin, LaunchAtLoginToggle): SMAppService.mainApp, no helper app. Handles "requires approval" with a link to System Settings. The service is a protocol, so tests use InMemoryLoginItemService.
• Global shortcuts (GlobalShortcut, HotKeyCenter, ShortcutRecorder): Carbon RegisterEventHotKey, which works in any app without Accessibility permission and inside the sandbox. A recorder like System Settings' (⎋ cancels, ⌫ removes, plain letters are refused), stored in UserDefaults.
• Shortcut model (KeyShortcut): parses "⌘⇧K", "cmd+shift+k" and "Control-Option-Space", shows itself as macOS menus do (⇧⌘K, modifiers in ⌃⌥⇧⌘ order), knows virtual key codes and converts to SwiftUI's KeyboardShortcut.
• Update prompt (UpdateChecker, UpdatePromptView, UpdateBanner, UpdatePromptWindow): reads a JSON feed, compares semantic versions, respects the minimum macOS of a release, remembers Skip This Version and Remind Me Later, and lets critical releases through.
• Status item text (StatusItemTitle): counts (99+), countdowns (24:13, 1:02:03), percentages, truncation with ….
• Liquid Glass: .glass and .glassProminent buttons on macOS 26, bordered buttons on macOS 14 and 15. Every macOS 26 API is behind an availability check.
• Swift 6 strict concurrency, zero dependencies, the logic tested with Swift Testing.

Installation

In Xcode choose File › Add Package Dependencies… and enter:

https://github.com/halilozel1903/MenuBarKit

Or add it to Package.swift:

dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/halilozel1903/MenuBarKit", from: "1.0.0")
]

Then set Application is agent (UIElement) to YES in your target's Info tab (LSUIElement, or INFOPLIST_KEY_LSUIElement = YES as a build setting), so the app has no Dock icon and no main menu.

Usage

The menu bar item and its window

import MenuBarKit
import SwiftUI

@main
struct TempoApp: App {
    @StateObject private var timer = FocusTimer()

    var body: some Scene {
        MenuBarApp("Tempo", systemImage: "timer", statusTitle: timer.menuBarTitle) {
            MenuBarPanel("Tempo", subtitle: "\(timer.statusLine)", systemImage: "timer", tint: .orange) {
                MenuBarSection("Timer") {
                    MenuBarRow("Start Focus", subtitle: "⌥⌘T", systemImage: "play.fill",
                               tint: .orange, value: "25:00") {
                        timer.start()
                    }
                    MenuBarRow("Short Break", systemImage: "cup.and.saucer.fill", tint: .teal, value: "5 min") {
                        timer.startBreak()
                    }
                }
                MenuBarSection("Options") {
                    MenuBarToggleRow("Do Not Disturb", systemImage: "moon.fill", tint: .indigo, isOn: $timer.doNotDisturb)
                }
            } accessory: {
                Text("3")   // anything at the trailing edge of the header
            }
        }

        Settings {
            TempoSettings()
        }
    }
}

MenuBarPanel(footer:) takes a MenuBarFooter.Configuration to hide the Settings button, the version or Quit (.hidden hides the footer).

Text next to the icon

StatusItemTitle.countdown(1_122)          // "18:42"
StatusItemTitle.countdown(3_723)          // "1:02:03"
StatusItemTitle.count(0)                  // ""  (the icon stands alone)
StatusItemTitle.count(250)                // "99+"
StatusItemTitle.percent(0.423)            // "42%"
StatusItemTitle.truncated("Deploying production", maxLength: 12) // "Deploying p…"
StatusItemTitle.join(["18:42", nil, "3"]) // "18:42 · 3"

Settings

Settings {
    SettingsPane(about: .fromBundle(tagline: "A calm focus timer.", links: [
        AboutInfo.Link("Website", url: URL(string: "https://example.com")!),
    ])) {
        Section("Timer") {
            Toggle("Play a sound when a session ends", isOn: $playsSound)
        }
    } shortcuts: {
        ShortcutSettingRow("Start or pause the timer", shortcut: model.toggleShortcut)
    }
}

Leave out shortcuts: and the Shortcuts tab disappears. selection: picks the first tab, showsLaunchAtLogin: false removes the Open at Login switch.

Open at Login

LaunchAtLoginToggle()                       // the switch, with an approval hint when needed

@ObservedObject var launchAtLogin = LaunchAtLogin.shared
Toggle("Open at Login", isOn: $launchAtLogin.isEnabled)
launchAtLogin.status                        // .enabled, .notRegistered, .requiresApproval, .notFound
launchAtLogin.refresh()                     // after the user changed it in System Settings

The system is the only source of truth; nothing is stored. Inject a LoginItemService to test code that uses it:

let service = InMemoryLoginItemService(requiresApproval: true)
let launchAtLogin = LaunchAtLogin(service: service)
launchAtLogin.isEnabled = true              // status == .requiresApproval

Registration works for an app in /Applications; an app run from Xcode's build folder may report .notFound.

Global keyboard shortcut

@MainActor
final class AppModel {
    let timer = FocusTimer()
    lazy var toggleShortcut = GlobalShortcut("toggleTimer", default: KeyShortcut("⌥⌘T")) { [timer] in
        timer.toggle()                      // runs on the main actor, whichever app is in front
    }
}

GlobalShortcut stores the user's choice under MenuBarKit.shortcut.<name> in UserDefaults and registers it again whenever it changes. Show a ShortcutSettingRow (or a bare ShortcutRecorder(shortcut: $binding)) to let the user change it. For a fixed shortcut, use HotKeyCenter directly:

let registration = try HotKeyCenter.shared.register(KeyShortcut("⌃⌥Space")!) { showPanel() }
HotKeyCenter.shared.unregister(registration)

KeyShortcut on its own:

KeyShortcut("⌘⇧K")?.displayString               // "⇧⌘K"
KeyShortcut("cmd+shift+k") == KeyShortcut("⇧⌘K") // true
KeyShortcut("Control-Option-Space")?.displayString // "⌃⌥Space"
KeyShortcut("⌥⌘←")?.key.keyCode                 // 0x7B
KeyShortcut("shift+k")?.isValidGlobalShortcut   // false: ⇧ alone would steal capital K
KeyShortcut("⌘,")?.keyboardShortcut             // SwiftUI KeyboardShortcut(",", modifiers: .command)

Update prompt

Put a JSON file on your website:

{
  "releases": [
    {
      "version": "1.3.0",
      "url": "https://example.com/Tempo-1.3.0.dmg",
      "notes": ["Focus statistics", "Faster launch"],
      "minimumSystemVersion": "14.0",
      "critical": false
    }
  ]
}

A single release object without "releases" works too, and notes may be one string with a change per line.

@StateObject private var updates = UpdateChecker(feedURL: URL(string: "https://example.com/tempo.json")!)

MenuBarPanel(...) {
    UpdateBanner(checker: updates) {                 // "Version 1.3 is available" · Later · Update
        if let release = updates.availableRelease {
            UpdatePromptWindow.show(release, checker: updates)   // the full prompt in its own window
        }
    }
}

await updates.checkForUpdates()                      // at launch
await updates.checkForUpdates(userInitiated: true)   // "Check for Updates…": ignores Skip and Later

The rules live in UpdatePolicy and need no network:

Running	Feed	User chose	Result
1.2	1.2.1, 1.3, 1.4		1.4
1.9	1.10		1.10 (numeric, not text, comparison)
1.2	1.3, 2.0.0-beta.1		1.3 (pre-releases only with includesPrereleases)
1.2 on macOS 15	1.3, 2.0 (needs macOS 26)		1.3
1.3 on macOS 15	2.0 (needs macOS 26)		.requiresNewerSystem
1.2	1.3	Skip 1.3	.skipped
1.2	1.3, 1.4	Skip 1.3	1.4
1.2	1.3	Remind me later	.postponed until the time is up
1.2	1.3 (critical)	Skip 1.3	1.3

SemanticVersion follows Semantic Versioning: SemanticVersion("v1.2"), "2.0.0-rc.1" < "2.0.0", SemanticVersion.current, SemanticVersion.operatingSystem.

How it works

	macOS 26	macOS 14 and 15
Footer, banner and prompt buttons	.glass, .glassProminent	.bordered, .borderedProminent

• Global shortcuts use Carbon's RegisterEventHotKey, still the only public API for a system-wide hot key that needs no permission. The C callback is a global function without captures; it reads the hot key ID and hands it to the main actor.
• The recorder listens with a local NSEvent monitor only while it records, and pauses HotKeyCenter so the current shortcut can be recorded again.
• Open at Login asks SMAppService.mainApp for its status every time instead of caching it.
• The settings button activates the app before it opens the Settings scene; a menu bar app is never active on its own, and the window would open behind others.

Example app

The Example folder contains Tempo, a made-up focus timer that lives in the menu bar: a countdown next to the icon, the panel above, a settings window, two global shortcuts (⌥⌘T starts or pauses, ⌃⌥⌘R resets) and an update prompt from a bundled feed. It uses XcodeGen so no project file has to live in the repo:

brew install xcodegen
cd Example && xcodegen generate
open MenuBarKitDemo.xcodeproj

The screenshots come from scripts/screenshots.sh. Launched with -screenshot <scene> (panel, settings, shortcut, update), the app shows that scene in a regular window of a fixed size; with -render-screenshot <file> it draws the window into a PNG itself and quits. That needs no Screen Recording permission, which CI runners do not reliably have; screencapture -l of the window is the fallback.

Requirements

• Xcode 26 or later (Swift 6.2 toolchain)
• macOS 14+ (Liquid Glass automatically on macOS 26)

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Please run swift test before opening a PR.

License

MenuBarKit is available under the MIT license. See LICENSE.