What is Grux OS?

Grux OS 1.2.1 · last checked 2026-09-13 · generated from the shipping release

Grux OS is a native macOS application that gives an AI agent access to the things already on your Mac: your mail, your calendar, your contacts, your notes, your meetings, your screen and a shell it can undo. It ships 39 surfaces and 116 tools in one window, it is MIT licensed, and the whole source tree is public. There is no Grux account, no Grux server and no subscription, so nothing is proxied and there is nowhere for a hosted copy of your data to sit. It talks to a model you pay for directly with your own key, or to a local model through Ollama with no key at all. It requires macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon. The current release is 1.2.1, published 30 August 2026.

What it is not

It is not a chat wrapper, a hosted service or a startup. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to buy. It is one person's tool, open sourced because it got useful enough to be worth somebody else's evening.

It is also not finished. 14 of the 39 surfaces carry a BETA badge in the sidebar because they are real and rough, and a test asserts that every one of them is badged so the label cannot quietly go stale. Nothing is hidden behind a waitlist: both tiers are in the same build.

What you need to run it

RequirementDetail
Operating systemmacOS 14 or later
HardwareApple silicon
ModelAn Anthropic API key, or Ollama running locally and no key at all
Download22.4 MB, signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple
LicenceMIT, and the whole tree is public
Cost$0 for the app. You pay your model provider directly, at their prices

How it is distributed

Three front doors, all the same build. The notarized zip from the releases page, a Homebrew cask, and an npm launcher that finds the installed app and wires up the command line.

brew install --cask dotcomjack/tap/grux
npx @dotcomjack/grux            # puts `grux` on your PATH and runs setup
spctl -a -vv /Applications/Grux.app   # accepted, source=Notarized Developer ID

Who makes it

One person, in Detroit, building and shipping products since 2015. Grux OS exists because running a dozen small products alone was never bottlenecked on code, it was bottlenecked on the hour a day spent moving between a mail client, a calendar, a terminal and four chat tabs that could not see any of it.

Questions

Is Grux OS free?
Yes. The app is $0, MIT licensed, with no account and no subscription. You pay your model provider directly on your own account, or run a local model through Ollama and pay nothing at all.
Does Grux OS send my data anywhere?
There is no Grux server, so nothing is proxied and nothing is stored off your machine. When you use a hosted model, that provider sees what you send it, which is true of any hosted model. Point Grux at Ollama and nothing leaves the Mac.
What are the system requirements for Grux OS?
macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon, plus either an Anthropic API key or Ollama running locally.
Is Grux OS open source?
Yes, MIT licensed. The Mac app is at github.com/dotcomjack/grux and the security package it runs on is a separate repository at github.com/dotcomjack/grux-guardrails.
Download Grux OS 1.2.1 Read the source

Free, MIT licensed. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon. 22.4 MB, signed and notarized by Apple. No account, no server, no subscription.