Applications

Installed applications with their own icons, one indexed palette. The row is the app's name, its source the subtitle (Applications, macOS, User, or the extra folder it came from), and Enter launches it. The bundle id and the display name are keywords, so com.apple. or anthropic finds the app and Chrome finds Google Chrome. Rows are sorted by name; the palette is indexed, so every app is a root result and ⌘R rescans.

A running app carries a green Running tag as of the last listing (the tag is refreshed by ⌘R, a settings change, and after a Quit or Hide from the panel) and gains Quit and Hide at the top of its actions; an app that is not running has them last, and both answer "is not running" as a toast rather than launching it.

Where the apps come from

• macOS: .app bundles in /Applications, /System/Applications and ~/Applications, one level deep so the Utilities folders come along. The first root wins a name. CFBundleIdentifier, CFBundleDisplayName and CFBundleName are read from the XML Info.plist; localised names are not. Enter opens the bundle path with the system opener.
• macOS, System Settings panes: 35 common panes (Keyboard, Displays, Privacy & Security, Wi-Fi, Battery, ...) are rows with the System Settings icon and System Settings as subtitle; settings, preferences and a few words per pane (dark mode, dns, airdrop) are keywords. Enter opens the pane through its x-apple.systempreferences: url. A curated table of macOS 13+ ids, not a scan.
• Linux: .desktop entries from every XDG data dir (~/.local/share, $XDG_DATA_DIRS, the flatpak exports), the first directory winning a desktop id. Entries with NoDisplay, Hidden, a TryExec that is not installed, or an OnlyShowIn/NotShowIn that excludes $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP are skipped. Comment (else GenericName) is the subtitle; GenericName, Keywords, the binary and the desktop id are keywords. Enter launches through gio launch, else gtk-launch, else the parsed Exec; Terminal=true entries run in $TERMINAL, else the first of kitty, foot, xterm on PATH. A [Desktop Action ...] group ("New Window", "New Private Window") is a secondary action run from its own Exec.

Keyboard

On Linux the actions are Open, the entry's own desktop actions, and Copy path.

Setup

Nothing to install. The first Quit or Hide on macOS shows the Automation prompt once: pal asks the app (or System Events) through Apple events, and macOS wants your say before it lets a process control another.

Settings, [extensions.apps]:

What it does not do

• Localised app names (InfoPlist.strings): they are binary plists in most system apps and would cost a spawn per app, so only the bundle's own names are keywords.
• Panes beyond the curated 35: /System/Library/ExtensionKit mixes panes with intents and widgets and carries no display names, so it is not scanned.
• Quit does not force: an app that puts up a save dialog keeps it, and the dialog is yours to finish.
• Force quit, uninstall, or a per-app "open new window": use the Windows palette for what is open, the Processes palette to kill.

Platforms

macOS and Linux. The System Settings panes, Quit, Hide and Reveal in Finder are macOS; the desktop actions are Linux.