wireguard-lite

Minimal macOS menu-bar app to toggle WireGuard VPN connections. A lightweight, open-source alternative to the official App Store client — built with Swift, no Xcode project required.

How It Works

graph LR
    A["Menu Bar<br/>(Swift UI)"] -->|sudo wg-quick up/down| B["wg-quick<br/>(Homebrew CLI)"]
    B -->|manages| C["WireGuard Tunnel<br/>(wg0.conf)"]
    C -->|state file| A
    A -.->|polls /var/run/wireguard/wg0.name<br/>every 5s| A

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• Wraps wg-quick from Homebrew — zero extra dependencies
• Detects external state changes (e.g., toggled from terminal)
• Menu-bar only — no Dock icon
• Supports passwordless sudo for seamless toggling
• Universal binary (Apple Silicon + Intel)

Prerequisites

brew install wireguard-tools

Place your config at the standard Homebrew path. The app auto-detects:

• /opt/homebrew/etc/wireguard/wg0.conf (Apple Silicon)
• /usr/local/etc/wireguard/wg0.conf (Intel)
• /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf (system)

Build & Install

# Build universal binary (arm64 + x86_64)
make

# Install to /Applications
make install

# Recommended: enable passwordless sudo for wg-quick
make setup

# Optional: auto-launch on login
make autostart

Uninstall

make noautostart   # remove auto-start (if enabled)
make unsetup       # remove sudoers rule (if enabled)
make uninstall     # remove from /Applications

Stack

Component	Detail
Language	Swift 5
Framework	Cocoa (native macOS)
Build	Makefile + swiftc (no Xcode project needed)
Binary	Universal (arm64 + x86_64)
Target	macOS 12.0+
Dependency	wireguard-tools via Homebrew

License

MIT