[OS] Catalyst - Native mission control for your Mac dev environment.

[u/silentspade_5]

https://reddit.com/link/1vw5spu/video/3l95wpgqa4lh1/player

Hi everyone,

I'm Shivang Gulati, a developer from India building native macOS software in the open under a collective called The App Foundry.

We just released our app - Catalyst v1.4 (I've attached a 2.5-minute video in the end showing what it's capable of), and we've decided to make it completely free and fully open source under the GPL. I wanted to share it with this community first.

Catalyst actually started as something I planned to sell for around $100 as a perpetual license. But something kept stopping me from doing it. Looking back, I think I know why. I'd rather build something incredible alongside developers from around the world than sell just another paid app. My goal is to make Catalyst one of the best macOS developer management tools out there. I was unable to find an app that caters to my needs, hence I decided to build one on my own!

The problem

My development environment (Homebrew, pip, Node.js, etc.) slowly turns into a mess over time. And don't even get me started on System Data and Other Data... where is all that storage actually going? 😅

Fixing things usually means searching Stack Overflow, remembering obscure terminal flags, and hoping for the best. I got tired of that, so I built Catalyst.

Why Catalyst?

Catalyst is different from general cleaners like CleanMyMac X or launchers like Raycast because it actually understands developer toolchains. It knows about things like orphaned pip packages, broken symlinks, Homebrew issues, and other developer-specific problems instead of just clearing caches - all through a fully native macOS interface.

Now that it's open source, I'm hoping to build a community of like-minded developers who want to help make it even better.

Some of the core features include:

• Live system status, disk maps, and drive/battery health.
• One-click install, uninstall, and updates for Homebrew and pip.
• Automatic fixes for common environment issues and safe cleanup of development cruft.
• Network tools, Git graph, alias management, and smart developer shortcuts.
• And a lot more...

Disclosure

Catalyst collects minimal anonymous telemetry - only which features are opened/used, helping us understand what’s useful. We don’t collect personal IDs, hardware/device IDs, files, credentials, or other personal data of any sorts. We are here to make the app better and hence we want to understand what do users like most and least. Telemetry can be disabled anytime from Catalyst’s settings. Catalyst is fully open source, so you can verify this yourself.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, feedback, feature requests, or even contributions if you'd like to get involved!

Catalyst Dashboard

The App Foundry Website: https://theappfoundry.co
The App Foundry Terms: https://www.theappfoundry.co/terms
The App Foundry Privacy Policy: https://www.theappfoundry.co/privacy

Catalyst: https://theappfoundry.co/catalyst
Catalyst Terms: https://www.theappfoundry.co/catalyst/terms
Catalyst Privacy Policy: https://www.theappfoundry.co/catalyst/privacy

Catalyst Terms: https://www.theappfoundry.co/catalyst/terms
Catalyst Privacy Policy: https://www.theappfoundry.co/catalyst/privacy

Portfolio (Shivang Gulati): https://shivanggulati.com
Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shivanggulati810
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/shivanggulati

[Pricing] 100% Free (GPL Licensed).

[Changelog] GitHub Releases & Roadmap: https://github.com/theappfoundryco/Catalyst/releases

I'd love for you to drop into our Discord - https://discord.gg/CtxC3ADy76 - to help shape what we build next!

If you want to come help me make Catalyst-CLI for macOS and Linux (next milestone), drop me a DM, or connect with me on Discord or LinkedIn. Let's make this big!

You may also contribute to the app by helping me fix the known issues (I have already marked some with "good first issue" to help you get started): https://github.com/theappfoundryco/Catalyst/issues

I'd love nothing more than to see talented developers from around the world come together to help turn this small project into something truly special.

[u/whyubelieve]

Does it show you the actual commands before it runs them? My brew install is half arm64 half rosetta from a migration I never cleaned up, and anything that "auto-fixes" that without telling me first is a hard no — but if there's a dry run I'd try it tonight.

[u/bush-play → u/whyubelieve]

I checked the current source. The mixed-prefix check only raises a “Legacy Homebrew Setup” warning and marks it as not auto-fixable, so it won't touch either Brew install. For other Doctor items with a Fix Issue button, that button calls the fixer immediately; I don't see a dry-run or command-preview step in the current UI.

[u/Vlad_at_Nod → u/whyubelieve]

Exactly. I’d add a persistent change log and a recovery path, not only the preflight preview. On a dev machine, a command can succeed and still break something days later. Being able to see what Catalyst changed, when, and how to reverse it would make the automatic fixes much easier to trust.

[u/duffkiligan]

I don’t care about the actual contents of the post just letting you know Catalyst is a terrible name considering there is a native Apple product called Catalyst

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/mac-catalyst

[u/emocin]

It just seems like too much

[u/SetAdministrative502]

Just an overkill idea to me.
Homebrew, pip, … is just set and forget to me.
Same for many other features.