A floating chat window that talks to a real LLM brain and drives your actual macOS desktop. Not a virtual sandbox, not a cloud VM. Open source, single 17 MB binary, zero subscriptions.
Go 1.22+ required. Grant Screen Recording + Accessibility on first launch.
Install
$ go install github.com/LocalKinAI/kinclaw/cmd/kinclaw@latestLaunch the floating chat UI
$ kinclaw serveOpens at http://127.0.0.1:8020/. For an app-like floating window: open -na "Google Chrome" --args --app="http://127.0.0.1:8020/?compact".
Cloud agents (Manus, Anthropic Computer Use, OpenAI Operator) run in their virtual machines. You can't see your Cursor, your Reminders, your private files. KinClaw runs on your Mac and operates the apps you already use.
kinclaw serve opens a single compact chat window in your browser. Operates your real macOS desktop alongside it — not a virtual sandbox, not a remote desktop. Markdown streams, soul switcher, session JSONL recording + replay.
🎙 push-to-talk via SenseVoice (CJK + English). 🔊 auto-spoken replies via Kokoro. Local audio service, no cloud roundtrip.
Hit a task with no skill? Pilot drafts SKILL.md, generates the script, registers it, retries the task. Circuit breaker prevents runaway loops.
spawn skill forks a specialist child (researcher / eye / critic / coder / curator) on a different brain. Hierarchical, kernel-capped at depth 1.
Each claw is independently usable. Four of them ship as pure-Go libraries you can pull into any project that needs to drive macOS at the framework level — no Xcode, no cgo, no Swift bridge.
Semantic UI control via macOS Accessibility tree (AX).
94% of macOS apps. ui find / read / click / tree / watch.
Real mouse + keyboard via CGEvent.
Smooth motion, target_pid background mode (no focus steal).
recordLocalKinAI/kinrec ↗Screen + audio capture, native MP4.
Non-blocking; tts narration captured in the same track.
webDrive any web page via Playwright.
JS evaluation, click + type, screenshots, React-compat fill.
See the Embedded Dylib paper for the distribution pattern these libraries share.
Other agent projects either run in the cloud (you can't see your real machine), or are bound to one app, or only operate browsers. KinClaw operates your whole macOS.
| Project | Where it runs | What it operates | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| KinClaw | Your Mac | Your real macOS apps | MIT · open |
| Anthropic Computer Use | Cloud Linux VM | A virtual desktop | Closed · API |
| OpenAI Operator | Cloud browser | A browser only | Closed · beta |
| Manus | Cloud VM | Their virtual desktop | Closed · subscription |
| Open Interpreter | Local terminal | Shell only · no GUI | MIT · open |
| Cursor / Cline / Aider | Inside the IDE | Your code only | Mixed |
Part of the LocalKin family · macOS-only · v0.2 will ship a native Swift WKWebView shell with always-on-top
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