Beacon
Start, stop and watch project commands from the macOS menu bar.
BetamacOS
How to get it today
Distributed through GitHub. Not on the App Store.
What it does
Beacon is a menu bar app for developers who keep several projects open at once. You add your projects once, then manage dev servers, tests and build commands from the menu bar without opening and closing terminal windows. The status, output and port of every running command sit in the same panel.
Highlights
- Finds commands on its own: besides package.json scripts, Makefile, justfile, Taskfile, Procfile, docker-compose, Cargo.toml, go.mod, manage.py, pyproject.toml, composer.json, mix.exs, pubspec.yaml, build.gradle and pom.xml — 15 file formats.
- Picks the package manager from the lockfile; no need to specify npm/pnpm/yarn by hand.
- Catches the port from dev server output and offers a directly clickable localhost link.
- If the port is taken (EADDRINUSE), kills the process holding it and restarts the command.
- Built-in tabbed terminal (xterm + node-pty) — no need to open a separate terminal window.
- Pinning a command to its own menu bar icon, favorites and a git status badge.
Screens
- Category
- macOS
- Releases
- obalabs/beacon-releases