Getting Started with Command Book

Who Is Command Book For?

Command Book is a native macOS app built with SwiftUI -- no Electron, no Chromium, just a fast, lightweight experience that feels at home on your Mac.

It's designed for developers, data scientists, and devops folks who:

  • Run multiple local services during development (web servers, databases, workers)
  • Need to monitor long-running processes (ML training, data pipelines, builds)
  • Value keyboard efficiency over mouse input
  • Want their process setup to survive terminal crashes and restarts
  • Appreciate efficient, native macOS apps over resource-intensive Electron apps

What Command Book Is (and Isn't)

Command Book is not a terminal emulator -- it's a dedicated home for your background processes. It runs commands through your login shell and captures their streaming output, perfect for servers, workers, and watchers like npm run dev or python app.py --reload. For interactive programs like vim, htop, or Claude Code, continue using your terminal. Command Book is the ideal companion for the processes you need running alongside them.

For commands that need a real terminal, Command Book's "Run in Terminal" feature lets you launch them in your preferred terminal emulator (Terminal.app, iTerm2, Warp, Ghostty, Kitty, or Alacritty) while still keeping them organized in Command Book.

Installation

Command Book is currently available for macOS 15.0 (Sequoia) and later. It's a universal binary supporting both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. A Windows version is planned -- stay tuned for updates.

Download

  1. Download the latest release.
  2. Open the downloaded .dmg file
  3. Drag Command Book to your Applications folder
  4. Launch Command Book from Applications or Spotlight

First Launch

Command Book is notarized and signed with our developer certificate, so it runs without Gatekeeper warnings on macOS. Simply double-click to launch.

Note: Command Book is not sandboxed because it needs to spawn arbitrary processes and access any working directory. This is why the app is not available on the Mac App Store.

Creating Your First Command

  1. Press ⌘K to open the Command Palette
  2. Click New Command or press ⌘N
  3. Fill in the command details:
    • Name: A descriptive name (e.g., "Web Server")
    • Command: The actual command to run (e.g., python -m http.server 8000)
    • Working Directory: Where to run the command from
  4. Click Save

Running Commands

There are several ways to start a command:

  • Command Palette: Press ⌘K, find your command, press Enter
  • Sidebar: Click the play button next to a running process
  • Menu: Use the Commands menu

Stopping Commands

  • Graceful Stop (⌘.): Sends SIGTERM, allows cleanup
  • Force Stop (⌘⇧.): Sends SIGKILL, immediate termination
  • Interrupt (Ctrl+C in output): Sends SIGINT, like pressing Ctrl+C in terminal

Shell Compatibility

Command Book detects your login shell and runs commands using your shell's -l -c flags. This means your .zshrc, .bashrc, or fish config files are sourced, giving you access to your PATH, aliases, and environment variables just as if you ran them in your terminal.

Supported shells:

  • zsh (macOS default)
  • bash
  • fish
  • Other POSIX-compatible shells

Next Steps