Dashboard
Live system metrics, Homebrew and Python install status, and a health-score summary. The single button that re-syncs the whole app after any change.
Read-only surface
The feature reference
Everything Catalyst does, in depth.
Two dozen surfaces across nine sections — each one a clean surface over a command you'd otherwise type by hand. Jump to a section, or read straight through.
Your machine, at a glance.
The mission-control surface and the environments you build on top of it.
Virtual Environments
Create Python venvs and track project folders — reading git branch, tag, and remote details as you go. Tracked projects persist across launches.
Never externally managedEvery package manager, one panel.
Manage, update, install, and discover — across Homebrew and pip, per interpreter, with outcomes proven by a fresh check.
pip Packages
List, inspect, and uninstall installed pip packages per detected interpreter. Names are sanitized before they ever reach pip.
Formulae / Casks
List and manage installed Homebrew formulae and casks, with brew paths resolved for Apple silicon or Intel — never hardcoded.
pip Updates
Find outdated packages with pip's own resolver (honoring Requires-Python), then update one by one with live progress and a success / held-back / failed summary.
Formulae / Casks Updates
The same per-package progress and failed-list workflow for Homebrew, with success judged on exit codes.
Install pip Packages
Search PyPI and install into a chosen interpreter, streaming output live. Install flags follow your global install mode.
Install Formulae / Casks
Search and install from a cached Homebrew catalog, running through the elevated tier only where a package needs it.
requirements.txt Installer
Bulk-install a whole requirements file, then verify what actually landed — splitting results into successful and failed, with per-package retry and export.
Popular Packages
Browse a curated set of popular packages and install any of them in one click, with the same install-mode governance.
The everyday shell chores, tamed.
The config edits and habits you'd otherwise hand-write into dotfiles.
SmartShortcuts
One-click recipes that set up a whole toolchain and its common packages, installed in dependency order. Detail content is native — never raw shell to paste.
Shell code never surfacedAliases
Read, create, and delete shell aliases from a GUI. Catalyst manages its own block sourced from your ~/.zshrc, so it never clobbers hand-written config.
Terminal Time Travel
Browse and search your zsh/bash history, then re-run any past command as an explicit action.
PATH Editor
Inspect and reorder your shell PATH with auto-save — no hidden staged edits. A re-scan reflects the saved order, so a delete never appears to come back.
Diagnose, clean, and check vitals.
A doctor that scores your environment, plus real hardware health and recoverable cleanup.
Dr. Catalyst
16 diagnostic checkers run concurrently, score your environment out of 100, group issues by category, and offer one-click fixes routed on a stable ID. Includes GhostBuster and a storage report.
Fixes are explicit, per-issueDisk Vitals (SSD)
Real SMART health data for your drive — parsed and visualized, not raw numbers. Offers to install smartmontools via Homebrew if it's missing.
Battery Health
Battery capacity, cycle count, and condition, read straight from macOS power data.
Read-onlyCruft Sweeper
Find deletable build artifacts — node_modules, .venv, DerivedData, __pycache__, target — confirmed by a sibling project marker, with Safe / Rebuild chips and a Protect-Active-Projects filter.
Deletes to Trash, gatedNetwork Diagnostics
Outbound connectivity, DNS, and reachability probes.
Read-only probesStartup Items
Show and manage what launches at login or as a startup service. Disabling one is explicit and reversible.
SSH Keys
Inspect keys, copy public keys, reveal in Finder, and fix key or directory permissions.
Private keys never shownLogs
A live view of the app's own terminal and debug log streams.
Your whole setup, in one file.
The signature feature — capture this Mac's dev environment and rebuild it on another. Nothing else on the platform does this.
Snapshot & Migrate
Capture Homebrew (taps, leaves, casks), every Python interpreter and its pip packages, your full ~/.zshrc and Catalyst-managed blocks, SmartShortcuts, git identity, and tracked venv projects into one portable .catalystsnapshot file.
Secrets scrubbed at captureDiff-then-restore
On the new Mac, Catalyst previews a grouped, per-item plan, skips anything already installed, and restores the rest in dependency order — exit-code-gated, resumable, and never running the same step twice.
Idempotent · resumableSafe profile import
Restoring your shell profile backs up the target's existing ~/.zshrc first, refuses to overwrite without that backup, then syntax-checks with zsh -n before it ever applies.
Backed up, then verifiedOne portable file
The .catalystsnapshot is a single archive — a lenient JSON manifest plus a ready-to-use Brewfile and requirements.txt. Every section decodes tolerantly, so a snapshot written by a newer build still opens cleanly in an older one.
Forward-compatibleThere when you look for it.
The quiet surfaces that make the rest feel effortless.
About
App info, version, and credits — partly fetched from the backend and cached for offline use.
Menu-bar mode
A lightweight popover — health score, outdated count, quick actions — reachable without opening the main window.
The thread through all of it
Every mutating action is sanitized, routed, and consented.
The features above share one spine: the execution layer. It's the most carefully guarded part of Catalyst — and it's worth understanding.