Aria

Type what's on your mind. Aria turns it into a prioritized task list in your Mac menu bar.
A tiny AI task manager powered by Claude. Bring your own Anthropic key. Your tasks never leave your Mac except to reach Anthropic.

   

Quick start · Features · How it works · Privacy · Limits · Build from source · FAQ

_{One sentence in, a scheduled task with steps out. Recorded from the real UI with sample data.}

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Most to-do apps want you to fill in a form: title, date, priority, project. Aria skips the form. Click the A in your menu bar, type the way you'd text a colleague ("reply to Priya about the budget before 11", "the launch slipped to next week", "what's left today?"), and Claude decides whether that's a new task, an update, a completion or a question. Aria sets the date, priority, time estimate and steps, and it spots duplicates.

Quick start

1. Download Aria (the .dmg for your Mac), drag it to Applications, and right-click → Open the first time (it isn't notarized; see FAQ).
2. Click the A in the menu bar, open Settings, and paste an Anthropic API key from console.anthropic.com.
3. Type remind me to send the deck to Maya tomorrow at 10 and press Enter.

Features

• Natural language in, structured tasks out. Create, update, complete, cancel, add steps, reprioritize several tasks at once, or just ask a question.
• Smart defaults. Due dates are never in the past, priorities run urgent → low, and time estimates follow simple rules (an email reply takes about 15 minutes, a deck takes about 3 hours).
• Duplicate detection. "Send Maya the contract" updates your existing Maya task instead of creating a second one.
• Today, Upcoming, Someday and Done Today sections. Finished tasks move to the archive after midnight.
• Undo the last AI change with one click.
• Clarifying questions when it can't tell which task you mean.
• Offline queue. Inputs typed without a connection are kept and sent when you're back online.
• Light and dark themes, drag to reorder, export to JSON, and launch at login.
• Menu-bar only. No Dock icon and no window switcher entry. It hides when you click away.
• Pick your model. It defaults to claude-opus-4-5. Change it in Settings → Model, or set ARIA_MODEL.

  

How it works

menu bar "A" ──click──▶ panel (src/index.html + renderer.js)
                              │  window.aria.* (contextBridge, src/preload.js)
                              ▼
                     main process (src/main.js)
                       │                      │
          src/ai.js: one HTTPS call     src/database.js: JSON files
          to api.anthropic.com           in ~/Library/Application Support/Aria/data

• src/ai.js builds a system prompt with your name, your work context, today's date and your current task list. It asks Claude to reply with exactly one JSON action (create, update, complete, cancel, add-subtask, bulk-update, answer or clarify). It uses plain fetch, with no SDK.
• src/main.js applies that action to the local store and returns the new list. It also owns the tray icon and the frameless panel.
• src/preload.js is the only bridge between the UI and Node. The renderer runs with contextIsolation and no Node access, behind a strict Content-Security-Policy.
• src/database.js keeps tasks.json, archive.json, settings.json and an undo snapshot.

Privacy

• Your tasks and settings stay on your Mac, as JSON files in ~/Library/Application Support/Aria/data. There's no Aria server, account, analytics or telemetry.
• Your API key stays on your device. It's saved in settings.json in that folder and sent only to api.anthropic.com, in the x-api-key header. It's stored as plain text, like most CLI configs, so treat that folder as you would ~/.aws.
• What goes to Anthropic: each time you press Enter, Aria sends what you typed, your name and work context from Settings, and a summary of your active tasks. That data falls under Anthropic's API terms.
• Reset Everything in Settings clears your key and profile. Deleting the data folder removes everything.

Limits

• macOS only. The panel, tray and vibrancy are built for the Mac menu bar. It launches on Linux for development, but it isn't supported there.
• Not notarized. The builds are ad-hoc signed, not Developer ID signed, so Gatekeeper warns on first launch.
• Costs are yours. Every input is one Claude API call on your key. A cheaper model can be set in Settings → Model.
• Needs a connection for anything the AI does. Offline inputs are queued, not processed.
• No sync. It runs on one Mac with no cloud or mobile app, by design.

Build from source

You need Node.js 20+ and npm.

git clone https://github.com/snahar7/aria.git && cd aria
npm ci
npm start          # run it from source
npm run lint       # syntax checks, broken-file references, secret scan
npm test           # unit tests for the Claude integration (fetch is mocked)
npm run dist       # build dist/Aria-<version>-mac-{arm64,x64}.{dmg,zip}

Electron is the only runtime dependency, and electron-builder packages the app. node scripts/capture.cjs regenerates the images in docs/ from the real UI, using sample data and a mocked backend (it needs Playwright and ffmpeg).

FAQ

macOS says Aria "can't be opened" or "is damaged"

The build isn't notarized by Apple. Either right-click Aria in Applications and choose Open, then Open again, or run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Aria.app

On recent macOS versions you may instead need System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.

Where do I get an API key, and what does it cost?

Create one at console.anthropic.com → API Keys. You pay Anthropic per use. Each input is a single request with a short reply (up to 1,024 tokens). For lower costs, pick a smaller model in Settings.

Which model does it use? Can I change it?

claude-opus-4-5 by default. Enter any Anthropic model id in Settings → Model, or launch with ARIA_MODEL=<model id>. The Settings value wins.

I don't see the icon

Aria is a menu-bar app with no Dock icon. Look for a bold A near the clock. On a crowded menu bar it may be hidden behind the notch, so a menu-bar manager or fewer icons helps. Right-click the A to quit.

Can I use it without Anthropic, like a local model?

Not today. src/ai.js is about 200 lines, so wiring up another provider is a small change, and pull requests are welcome.

License

MIT © 2026 Shubham Nahar · github.com/snahar7