# What pounce is (/docs/pounce)



**Pounce** is a free, open-source, native command palette for macOS: a fast,
dmenu-style picker you summon with a hotkey. Hit **⌘Space**, fuzzy-type, hit
**Return**. It launches apps, runs commands, answers quick questions inline,
and hosts a handful of built-in modes: clipboard history, an emoji and symbols
grid, screenshots, and more.

Every launcher lets you open an app. The moment you want it to do something of
your own, you are reading an extension SDK, making an account, or waiting for
someone else to publish the thing you needed twenty minutes ago.

Pounce takes the other road. Its whole personality is one idea: **every command
is a file.** Drop a shell script in a folder and it's in the palette: five
lines, two comments, no plugin API, no extension store, no account.

That one idea has a second audience now: a **coding agent** can extend pounce the
same way you do, by writing a file. Say what you want in a sentence, and the
command exists before you've finished the coffee.

It is [MIT licensed](https://github.com/hausfold/pounce/blob/main/LICENSE)
(every feature in these pages, no paid tier), and it installs standalone from
Homebrew with **no Nix required**.

## What's in it [#whats-in-it]

|                       |                                                                                                                                          |
| --------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Apps & actions**    | One list, fuzzy-matched. Type `saf`, get Safari; your own commands sit in the same list, ranked the same way.                            |
| **Quick answers**     | `2*847`, `72 f in c`, `100 usd in eur`, `14:00 utc in pst`: the answer pins to the top row and `⏎` copies it.                            |
| **Clipboard history** | Your recent copies in a two-pane view, searchable, with an optional paste straight back into the app you came from.                      |
| **Find Files**        | Search by name as you type, over Spotlight's own index. `⏎` opens, `⌘⏎` reveals in Finder, `⌥⏎` copies the path.                         |
| **Emoji & symbols**   | One grid for both: type `command` and get ⌘, `arrow` and get →. Plain Unicode, so it pastes anywhere.                                    |
| **System Settings**   | Every pane by name, and every setting inside them: "Displays" goes to Displays, "night shift" goes to the switch itself.                 |
| **Windows**           | An opt-in `⌘Tab` that walks your actual *windows*, newest first, with type-to-filter.                                                    |
| **Plugins**           | Docker, SSH hosts, Tailscale, Spotify, Bluetooth, audio devices, GitHub, caffeinate. Off by default, on by id, each still just a script. |

A screenshot browser, a live camera peek and a searchable cheatsheet live
beside them.

## How it behaves [#how-it-behaves]

* **Instant.** The daemon holds the hotkey in-process, so a press lands in an
  already-warm program: no shell, no client to spawn, no round trip.
* **It learns.** Match quality first, then habit on two clocks, the row you keep
  taking for that exact query, and a tilt towards what you reach for from where
  you are. What you meant is usually the first row.
* **Quiet.** No account, no sign-in, no telemetry, nothing to log in to and
  nothing reported back.
* **Offline.** Two outbound calls exist and both are optional in
  [config](/docs/pounce/config): daily reference rates for currency conversion,
  and an hourly look at pounce's own release tag. Everything else works with the
  Wi-Fi off.
* **Updates are nudged, never automatic.** A pending release pins itself to the
  first row and notifies at most once a day; `⌘⏎` skips that version. Applying
  it is always your keystroke.
* **Diagnosable.** `pounce doctor` answers the three questions that go wrong:
  is the daemon up, is Accessibility granted, is something else eating your
  hotkey.

## Made for agents [#made-for-agents]

Pounce is built on the unix philosophy (everything is a file, everything is a
CLI), and that turns out to be exactly the shape a coding agent drives well.
Commands are shell scripts in a folder, [config](/docs/pounce/config) is one
JSON file, and `pounce run`, `pounce drafts` and `pounce doctor` reach the
palette from any terminal. There is no extension SDK to teach an agent and no
API key to mint: an agent that can write a five-line script can put a new
command in your palette, and one that can read a folder can tell you what's
already there.

Pounce also ships its own **agent skill**:
[`ai/SKILL.md`](https://github.com/hausfold/pounce/blob/main/ai/SKILL.md) in
the repo, a short file that teaches Claude Code, Codex or any skill-reading
agent how to drive pounce well. The best trick in it: mid-task, an agent can
put a **native picker** on your screen and let you choose from a list it
generated, instead of making you type an answer into a terminal. Every
hausfold app ships a skill like this, written to one
[family standard](https://github.com/hausfold/workshop/blob/main/docs/agent-surface.md).

## Questions [#questions]

**Another launcher?** There are good ones, and if you want a marketplace of
ready-made extensions you should use one of them. Pounce's angle is ownership:
the extension API is the shell you already know, and nothing you write depends
on us staying interested.

**My scripts?** They stay yours, as files, in your own folder. Nothing is
imported into a database, so backing them up is backing up a directory and
moving Macs is copying one.

## Inside a haus machine [#inside-a-haus-machine]

Pounce runs perfectly well on its own, and that is how most people meet it. It
is also a **room** in [haus](/docs/haus), the macOS layer, where the daemon,
the hotkey and the Accessibility grant are wired up with the rest of the
machine and survive a rebuild. Standalone and in-the-house are the same app;
only the wiring differs. See [the Launcher room](/docs/haus/rooms/launcher).