Ark

Personal AI assistant for macOS — real-time transcription + contextual AI in a floating panel.

Ark is a native macOS app that lives in your menu bar, capturing conversation audio in real time (microphone + system audio), transcribing with Whisper, and providing contextual AI suggestions through a sleek floating panel. Perfect for meetings, calls, pair programming, coaching sessions, and study groups.

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Features

• Dual audio capture — records your microphone and system audio (calls, meetings) simultaneously
• Real-time transcription — powered by Whisper (large-v3) with native Portuguese support
• Contextual suggestions — AI analyzes the conversation and provides relevant suggestions on the spot
• Built-in chat — floating panel to ask questions about the ongoing conversation
• Multiple profiles — generalist, code review, tech coaching — tailor the assistant to your context
• Streaming responses — AI answers appear in real time, no waiting
• Floating bar — minimal pill-shaped interface that floats over any app
• Menu bar — quick controls via menu bar icon with global shortcut (Cmd + Enter)
• Configurable — AI model, Whisper model, audio device, reasoning level

Architecture

Ark/
├── App/                    # AppDelegate, AppState, Constants
├── Models/                 # ChatMessage, Settings, TranscriptEntry, AssistantProfile
├── Services/
│   ├── Audio/              # Mic & system audio capture
│   ├── Transcription/      # Whisper + transcript management
│   ├── AI/                 # Codex CLI integration
│   └── Persistence/        # UserDefaults store
├── Views/
│   ├── FloatingBar/        # Main floating bar
│   ├── ChatPanel/          # AI chat panel
│   ├── Components/         # GlassPanel, PulsingIndicator
│   └── Settings/           # Settings screens
├── Window/                 # FloatingPanelController
└── Resources/              # Assets

Requirements

• macOS 14.0+
• Xcode 15+
• Codex CLI installed (npm install -g @openai/codex)
• Microphone and screen recording permissions

Getting Started

1. Clone the repository
2. Open Ark.xcodeproj in Xcode
3. Build and run (Cmd + R)
4. The mic icon appears in the menu bar
5. Set up your API key in settings (Cmd + ,)
6. Start listening with Cmd + Enter and open the chat

Stack

Layer	Technology
UI	SwiftUI + AppKit
Audio	AVFoundation + ScreenCaptureKit
Transcription	Whisper (on-device)
AI	OpenAI Codex CLI
Persistence	UserDefaults

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.