Aegis

Who It's For

Aegis is a companion bar tool for tiling window manager users who want their menu bar and MacBook notch tightly integrated with their workflow. It supports yabai, AeroSpace, and Rift — auto-detected at launch with no manual configuration required. If you want space indicators showing which apps live on each space, click-to-switch navigation, a Cmd+Tab replacement with window previews, and a notch HUD for media and system controls, Aegis bundles all of that in a single JSON-configured native app.

How It Works

Aegis connects to your window manager using the appropriate IPC mechanism for each: a FIFO pipe for yabai and AeroSpace, and the Mach subscription API for Rift. This lets it read the current space layout and window states in real time. The menu bar shows space indicators as labeled badges with app icons; clicking switches spaces, scrolling cycles through them, and dragging reorders them. The Cmd+Tab replacement intercepts the system app switcher and presents a visual grid of windows with previews — navigable with two-finger scroll. The notch HUD activates on media playback, volume changes, or brightness adjustments to show a transient overlay in the notch area. All appearance and behavior is defined in a JSON config file that hot-reloads on save.

Compared to Similar Tools

Compared to SketchyBar, Aegis is more opinionated and ships pre-integrated with supported window managers — SketchyBar is a general-purpose status bar engine that requires you to build and wire up your setup from scratch, while Aegis provides working space and window integration out of the box. If you want a polished companion running in minutes, Aegis wins on time-to-useful; if you need full control over every widget and data source, SketchyBar is more capable. Compared to simple-bar (Übersicht-based), Aegis uses native Swift rather than a web rendering layer, resulting in lower resource usage and a more macOS-native feel.

Requirements

• macOS 14 Sonoma or later
• One supported window manager installed: yabai, AeroSpace, or Rift
• Accessibility permissions required
• Apple Silicon recommended (notch HUD requires a MacBook with a notch)
• Free and open-source under the MIT License

Getting Started

Download the latest release from the GitHub releases page and launch the app. Grant Accessibility permission when prompted. Aegis auto-detects your window manager — no manual config step required to get started. Customize appearance and behavior by editing the JSON config file; changes hot-reload without restarting the app. The README on GitHub documents all available options.