A Mac app, a daemon, and the fleet.
Atlas is two programs. The app owns the screen, the hotkeys, and the pixels. The daemon owns the conversation with the fleet and the models.
Two programs
The Swift app handles windows, hotkeys, selection reading, OCR, dictation, Metal drawing, and account authentication. atlasd, the Python daemon, handles routing, the fleet calls, the models, cost, and local state. They talk over a Unix domain socket that only your account can open, using JSON-RPC 2.0. Quitting the app does not stop the daemon.
The fleet bus
Atlas knows 21 fleet tools: Cadence, Slate, Envoy, Docket, Chronicle, Vigil, Fulcrum, Meridian, Trellis, Herald, Beacon, Pulse, Narrative, Codex, Tribe, Courier, Packed, Dossier, and the auth, purchase, and notification services. It calls them over plain REST and probes each one every 60 seconds for status and latency, shown in Settings under Fleet.
- Every operation Atlas uses is listed in a route table checked against that tool's real API. A test reads the daemon's source and fails on any call without a verified route, so a guessed endpoint cannot slip in.
- Response shapes differ between tools, so Atlas reads each one the way that tool returns it.
- Scoping ids (a Chronicle workspace, a Courier account, a Cadence calendar) are discovered or set per tool. When one is missing, the feature says so instead of guessing.
- Authentication is per tool. Mutual TLS client certificates are supported when configured.
Asking before writing
Anything that changes a fleet tool passes the permission guard, which queues a proposal for your answer. Multi-record actions (reminders, follow-ups, commitments, publishing) are built to create everything or undo everything, in reverse order.
Models and money
Free-form answers stream from Claude Opus. Classification uses Claude Haiku when an Anthropic key is present and keyword rules when it is not. Every model call is logged with its cost, under a daily cap that warns at 80 percent and drops free-form questions to Haiku at the cap.
What stays on your Mac
- Command history, costs, and settings, in a local SQLite file readable only by you.
- Account tokens, in the Keychain, not synced.
- OCR images, in memory only.
- Keystroke rhythm, as counts and timing, never the keys.
How it is tested
The repo carries 37 Python test files for the daemon and 23 Swift test files for the app, including GPU readback checks of the Metal passes and layout checks in both light and dark appearance. Tests run in the repo's pre-commit hook and a daily gate; the counts here are files, not a fresh pass count.
Questions about this tool?
Write to Renkara Media Group and a person will answer.