ARI Software | ARI Software

A tiny native macOS menu bar app for starting, stopping, and monitoring your local ARI instance.

ARI Menu is a completely optional macOS native menu bar app to manage ARI.Software. It is free and open source. You can use it to easily start ARI, check the status, view the logs - all from the little circle in your menu bar.

macOS only. ARI Menu is currently available for macOS 13 or later. Windows and Linux equivalents are not available yet.

The compiled app weighs in at around 400 KB and uses negligible memory. It lives entirely in the menu bar — no Dock icon, no clutter.

Features

One-click start and stop — wraps the ./ari start and ./ari stop commands you already know
Live status indicator — the menu bar icon changes color so you always know if ARI is reachable
Open in browser — jump straight to http://localhost:3000
Live logs window — tail the dev server output in a clean SwiftUI window with copy and clear
Launch at login — flip a toggle and ARI starts when you log in (uses Apple's modern SMAppService API — no LaunchAgent plists, no cruft)
Quiet by design — no Dock icon, no notifications spam, no background drama

Requirements

macOS 13 (Ventura) or later
A working ARI installation somewhere on disk (default expected location: ~/ARI)
Swift 5.9+ (ships with Xcode 15 or the standalone Command Line Tools — xcode-select --install)

Install

ARI Menu is open source. You build it yourself in a single command — this also sidesteps macOS's Gatekeeper "could not verify" warning that downloaded apps trigger, since locally-built apps aren't quarantined.

You'll need Swift 5.9+ (ships with Xcode 15 or the standalone Command Line Tools — install with xcode-select --install). Then run these one at a time:

Clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/ARIsoftware/ARI-MENU.git

Move into the project folder:
```
cd ARI-MENU
```
Build the app:
```
bash Scripts/build-app.sh
```
Move it into your Applications folder:
```
mv ARIMenu.app /Applications/
```
Launch it:
```
open /Applications/ARIMenu.app
```

Look for the circle icon on the right side of your menu bar. That's it.

App Management permission. macOS will ask you to allow ARI Menu to manage other apps. This is required because Stop sends SIGTERM to the dev server process. Click Allow. You can review or revoke this later under System Settings → Privacy & Security → App Management.

Configuration

Open the menu and choose Settings. Ensure the Path correctly points to your ARI installation.

ARI Menu Settings window showing the ARI Repository path field with a green Found ari script at this path confirmation, and a Status Polling slider set to 7 seconds

Setting	Default	Notes
ARI repository path	`~/ARI`	The folder containing your `ari` CLI shim. Use Browse to pick another location.
Status poll interval	5 seconds	How often the app probes `localhost:3000`. Range: 2–30 seconds.
Launch at login	On	Registers the app as a login item via `SMAppService`.

Settings are stored in standard macOS UserDefaults under the bundle identifier ari.software.menu.

Troubleshooting

The menu bar icon stays red even though ARI is running. Open Settings… and confirm the ARI repository path points to the folder containing your ./ari CLI. If you started ARI on a non-default port, the status probe (which targets localhost:3000) won't see it.

"Stop" doesn't kill the dev server. Make sure you allowed App Management permission on first launch (System Settings → Privacy & Security → App Management). Without it, macOS blocks the SIGTERM.

The app won't open after building. Right-click ARIMenu.app → Open → confirm in the Gatekeeper dialog. The build is ad-hoc signed, so the standard double-click is blocked the first time.

License

Apache License 2.0.

Next Steps

Installation — macOS — Install the ARI app itself
Commands — Reference for the ./ari CLI that the menu app wraps
Settings — Configure your ARI instance

Menu App