PRBar

A native macOS menu-bar app that closes the PR review-and-merge feedback loop. PRBar watches the PRs you authored and the ones waiting on your review, runs AI triage on incoming review requests, and surfaces "ready to merge" / "ready to review" notifications — coalesced, never noisy.

It uses your existing gh and claude (or codex) CLI auth. No GitHub OAuth, no API keys, no backend, no telemetry.

Why

Two interrupt-driven workflows eat context all day:

• Babysitting your own PRs — checking GitHub on a loop to see if CI is green and reviews have landed, so you can hit Squash. PRBar tells you with a one-click merge button the moment it's ready.
• Triaging review requests — most of them are quick "approve" calls, but you still pay the full context-switch tax to look at the diff. PRBar runs a Claude (or Codex) review in the background, scoped to the right monorepo subfolder, and shows you a verdict + flagged areas before you even open GitHub.

Both belong on a glance, not a tab. PRBar puts them on a glance.

What you get

• One badge in the menu bar that summarises everything — 2 ready · 5 review · 1 ⚠.
• AI review queue, scoped to one monorepo subfolder, with read-only access (Read / Glob / Grep + WebFetch + per-subfolder MCP tools). The AI is a judge, not a fixer — it can't run code, edit files, or spawn subagents. Hard caps on tool-call count and dollar cost per review.
• Per-repo configuration: which subfolders count as roots, exclude patterns, tool-mode override, optional auto-approve and auto-deny rules with a 30-second undo window.
• Coalesced notifications with action buttons (Merge all / Open) — never one ping per state transition.
• Pop a PR out into a full-size window when the popover is too cramped for a big diff.

Screenshots

Menu-bar popover

At a glance	Inbox	AI verdict in detail

Standalone detail window

For long diffs and detailed review reading. Same content as the popover, full size.

Settings

General	Review defaults	Repositories	Diagnostics

Review defaults set the app-level value of every review setting; a repo rule overrides only what it needs and inherits the rest.

How it works

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ MenuBarExtra (icon + badge)                              │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
   │ click
   ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Popover  My PRs · Inbox · History                        │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
   │
   ├──────────────┬──────────────────┬──────────────┐
   ▼              ▼                  ▼              ▼
┌────────┐  ┌──────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐  ┌────────┐
│ Poller │  │ ReviewQueue  │  │ Readiness    │  │ Notifier│
│ (gh)   │→ │  ↳ Splitter  │→ │ Coordinator  │→ │ (UN…)  │
└────────┘  │  ↳ Checkout  │  └──────────────┘  └────────┘
            │  ↳ Provider  │
            │  ↳ Aggregator│
            └──────────────┘

Polls GitHub every 60 s via gh. Each new review request fans out into per-subfolder subreviews (so each picks up its own CLAUDE.md / .mcp.json / .claude/settings.json from the right cwd), aggregates the verdicts, and feeds the readiness coordinator. The coordinator decides when to fire a single grouped notification.

Architecture and contributor notes: CLAUDE.md.

Requirements

• macOS 14 or later
• Xcode 15+ (full Xcode, not just Command Line Tools)
• Homebrew (for xcodegen)
• gh authenticated: gh auth login
• One AI CLI logged in:
  • claude (Claude Code Max / Pro), or
  • codex (OpenAI's Codex CLI)

Install

brew install xcodegen
sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer  # if Xcode just installed
bin/regen     # generate PRBar.xcodeproj from project.yml
bin/build     # compile
bin/run       # launch

After launch, look for the text.bubble icon in the menu bar (top-right). Left-click for the popover, right-click for Settings / Quit.

macOS will ask for notification permission on first launch. If you miss the dialog, copy the built app to /Applications/ and relaunch — LSUIElement agent apps run from a debug build path sometimes never see the auth prompt.

Daily commands

bin/build         # regenerate project + build
bin/test          # build + run tests
bin/run           # build + launch (kills any prior instance)
bin/screenshots   # regenerate marketing screenshots

For SwiftUI Previews / Xcode debugger / project inspection: open PRBar.xcodeproj.

PRBar.xcodeproj/ is generated and gitignored — don't commit it.

Auto-update

The release workflow signs each tag with EdDSA, publishes a notarization-ready DMG, and updates the appcast on gh-pages. The app uses Sparkle 2 to check for updates in the background; users get a "PRBar X.Y is available" prompt without re-downloading by hand.

License

MIT — Copyright (c) 2026 Lukasz Stefaniak.