LaunchdUI

A native macOS app for browsing and inspecting launchd services. Built with SwiftUI, Swift 6 strict concurrency, targeting macOS 15+.

Features

• Browse all launchd services — User Agents, System Agents, System Daemons, Apple Agents, Apple Daemons
• Live status indicators — Running (green), Waiting (blue), Stopped (gray), Error (red), Killed (orange), Disabled, Not Loaded
• Search & filter — Filter by text, status, and schedule type with multi-select chip filters
• Service details — Plist path, program, arguments, PID, schedule, and runtime metadata from launchctl print
• Plist inspector — Tree view with expandable nodes and syntax-highlighted XML source view
• Copyable commands — Ready-to-paste launchctl commands for start, stop, enable, disable, and remove
• Refresh — Auto-refreshes on window focus, or manually with Cmd+R

Strictly Read-Only

LaunchdUI never executes mutating launchctl commands. It only reads service data from plist files and launchctl list / print / print-disabled. Actionable commands are displayed as copyable strings for the user to run in their own terminal.

Prerequisites

• macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later
• Swift 6.0+ (included with Xcode 16+)

Install

./install.sh

This builds a release binary, bundles it as a .app with the icon, and copies it to /Applications.

Build & Run

# Run directly
swift run LaunchdUI

# Build a standalone .app bundle (without installing)
./scripts/bundle.sh
open .build/release/LaunchdUI.app

Test

swift test

Architecture

• Models — LaunchdService, ServiceStatus, ServiceSchedule, ServiceSource, PlistValue (recursive Sendable enum)
• Parsers — Pure static functions for launchctl list, print-disabled, and print output
• Services — ServiceRepository (actor), LaunchctlClient, PlistReader, CommandGenerator
• UI — AppState (@Observable), split-view layout with sidebar list and detail panel

Built as a Swift Package with no Xcode project required.