Lodestar

Keyboard navigation for macOS. Destination over process.

Lodestar navigates to the application you want without distraction. Anything you open or focus through it arrives maximized and hides the others, and everything else about your windows keeps working the way you are used to. Applications you use constantly can be assigned a letter, or a short set of letters, and opened directly without a list.

Its commands are designed to become muscle memory. Navigation that begins as a deliberate sequence turns into a single practised gesture, until you are choosing a destination rather than the steps that lead to it.

• lode S: you are in Slack, maximized. Not launching, not arranging.
• lode space: the launcher, a list of your applications ordered by what you actually use, teaching the faster gesture for everything you pick.
• lode ' W: breaths. Saved layouts that restore whole worlds, even relaunching apps that are not running.
• lode ;: click hints. Every pressable element wears a label. Type the label to click it.
• lode , / lode . / lode ⏎: scroll mode, menu search, and Ask, which routes each destination to the right browser profile.

One grammar spans applications, the inside of a window, the web, and what you have copied. Learn it once. Your hands know it everywhere. SIP stays on. Spaces stay untouched. One private API call, documented.

Install

Requires macOS 13 or later. Best on macOS 26.

git clone https://github.com/Vaccone-Software/lodestar.git && cd lodestar
./scripts/install-app.sh

Grant Accessibility when prompted. Lodestar wakes on its own the moment the grant lands. Lode is right ⌘ by default, which means right ⌘ stops being a command key. That is the trade, and it is configurable.

Or with Homebrew:

brew install --cask vaccone-software/tap/lodestar

Learn it

• Hold lode alone: the system teaches its own map.
• lode ?: the cheat sheet. Every gesture, your live graph and breaths, generated from your actual config.
• GUIDE.md: the complete reference.
• DESIGN.md: the philosophy. Every feature must become a fixed gesture the hand owns, or it is cut.
• FINDINGS.md: the engineering ledger. Every platform assumption probed, with verdicts.

Your config is one sparse JSON file: it holds only what you changed, the schema documents every option with editor completion, and every write is validated against your machine with ground truth (lodestar check, lodestar config set). Agents and tools get a stable contract: AGENTS.md.

Governance

Lodestar is an opinionated instrument, built and maintained by one person at Vaccone. The design carries deliberate opinions, and the reasoning usually exists in DESIGN.md or FINDINGS.md before a decision looks wrong. Issues are very welcome: start them with lodestar diagnose output so they begin with evidence, and keep them respectful and succinct.

Development

swift build && swift test    # 163 tests: grammar, layout, resilience, hints

The gesture grammar, layout engine, and state stores are pure and tested in LodestarCore. The app target is a thin AppKit shell. Once installed, lodestar diagnose, reload, reset-config, and friends work from any shell.

License

FSL 1.1 with an MIT future grant. Fair Source: read it, audit it, modify it for yourself. Do not ship a competing substitute. Each release becomes MIT two years after it ships.