Installation

Installation

Pick the section that matches your operating system and desktop environment. Each target ships a native artifact — there is no universal binary.

macOS

Install from a release (recommended)

Download claudebar-macos-<version>.dmg from the latest release, open it, and drag ClaudeBar into /Applications.

On first launch, ClaudeBar registers itself as a Login Item via SMAppService, so the menu-bar indicator appears automatically every time you sign in. macOS will show its standard "ClaudeBar was added to Login Items" prompt the first time. You can toggle this later from System Settings → General → Login Items.

Gatekeeper note: the .dmg is not code-signed or notarized. On first launch macOS may refuse to open it ("cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified"). Right-click ClaudeBar.app → Open → Open to bypass. One-time step.

Build from source

make pack-macos        # → apps/macos/dist/ClaudeBar.app

Drag the resulting ClaudeBar.app into /Applications.

Windows

Install from a release (recommended)

Download claudebar-windows-<version>.msi from the latest release and double-click to run the installer. ClaudeBar will be installed to Program Files\Bilbilak\ClaudeBar\, given a Start Menu shortcut, and registered to auto-start at every user login.

SmartScreen note: the installer is not Authenticode-signed. On first run Windows will show "Windows protected your PC — unknown publisher". Click More info → Run anyway. One-time step.

To disable the auto-start, open Task Manager → Startup apps and disable ClaudeBar. To uninstall, use Settings → Apps → Installed apps → ClaudeBar (the MSI cleans up its registry entries and Start Menu shortcut).

Build from source

make pack-windows      # → apps/windows/publish/ClaudeBar.exe

Run apps/windows/publish/ClaudeBar.exe directly. Note that local builds produce a bare executable, not an .msi installer — the installer is only produced by the release workflow in CI.

Linux — Arch / AUR (easiest)

Pick the front-end matching your desktop environment and install from the AUR:

yay -S claudebar-helper      # Rust helper (required by all but claudebar-gnome)
yay -S claudebar-gnome       # OR claudebar-kde / cinnamon / xfce / mate / budgie / lxqt

_PKGBUILD_s live in the main repo under packaging/arch/.

Linux — other distros

Use make install-<front-end> from the repo root. See each apps/linux/<de>/README.md in the main repo for per-distro build-time dependencies.

make setup               # npm install for the GNOME extension
make install-helper      # Rust helper → ~/.local/bin
make install-gnome       # GNOME extension → ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions
make install-kde         # KDE Plasmoid (via kpackagetool6)
sudo make install-xfce   # XFCE plugin (meson install, system-wide)
sudo make install-mate   # MATE applet (system-wide)
sudo make install-budgie # Budgie applet
sudo make install-lxqt   # LXQt plugin

Pre-built Linux artifacts

The release workflow publishes these native-format artifacts alongside the source tarball:

• claudebar-helper-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz — the Rust helper binary (x86_64 only for now). tar xf preserves the executable bit.
• claudebar-linux-gnome-<version>.zip — GNOME Shell extension, installable with gnome-extensions install <file>.zip.
• claudebar-kde-<version>.plasmoid — KDE Plasmoid, installable with kpackagetool6 -i <file>.plasmoid.
• claudebar-linux-cinnamon-<version>.zip — Cinnamon applet.

Every release artifact is accompanied by a claudebar-<version>-SHA256SUMS file for download verification with sha256sum --check.

Desktop environments not covered above

Run the Rust helper's built-in tray mode as a fallback:

claudebar-helper tray

This registers a cross-DE StatusNotifierItem icon through the Secret Service, giving you the same two-bar indicator on any freedesktop-compliant panel.