You ask Claude Code to write a quick CLI tool — transcribe a video, rename a folder of photos, dub a clip into Japanese. It works. Then it lives in ~/scripts/ and you forget the flags by Tuesday.
Pier turns those scripts into tiles in your menu bar. Click a tile, fill in its inputs (drop a file, pick a folder, type a value), hit Run. Output streams back live.
The whole catalog is one JSON file (~/.pier/tools.json) — so Claude Code adds, edits, and removes tools by talking to the file directly. No UI work, no per-tool scripting, no electron-app-per-task graveyard.
Grab the latest Pier_x.y.z_universal.dmg from Releases, drag Pier.app to Applications, launch.
Builds are codesigned (Developer ID: Benri LLC) and notarized by Apple — no Gatekeeper warnings. Future updates download silently and prompt to install on quit.
1. Define a tool — ask Claude Code, or edit ~/.pier/tools.json directly:
{
"id": "transcribe",
"name": "Transcribe",
"icon": "▸",
"command": "/usr/local/bin/whisper",
"args": ["{input}", "--model", "{model}"],
"parameters": [
{ "id": "input", "type": "file", "accepts": [".mp4", ".m4a", ".mp3"] },
{ "id": "model", "type": "select", "options": ["tiny", "base", "small"], "default": "base" }
]
}2. Pier hot-reloads within a second. A new tile appears.
3. Click the tile to open its run dialog. Drop a file into the input zone, fill any other parameters, hit Run.
4. Watch stdout stream in live. Stop, re-run, or open past runs from the History panel.
Every run is appended to ~/.pier/audit.log (JSONL) for forensics.
Pier ships a bundled skill so Claude Code knows the schema and the ~/.pier/tools.json location. Drop it in once and ask things like:
"Add a tool that resizes any image I drop on it to 1080p, using the ffmpeg in
/opt/homebrew/bin."
Claude writes the JSON entry, Pier hot-reloads, the tile is live.
- One-tile-per-tool for any CLI binary or script, with file/folder drag-drop on input fields
- Typed parameters —
file,folder,text,url,select,boolean,number,multiselect,slider,date - Hot-reloading config — edit JSON, tiles update in place
- Categories, favorites, recents, and search — stay fast as the catalog grows
- Long-running processes with live streaming output and a Stop button (dev servers, watchers, etc.)
- Secrets, done right —
${keychain:NAME}pulls from macOS Keychain; audit log records which vars came from where, never the values - Run history — re-open past output blobs from
~/.pier/runs/ - Library — one-click install curated tools from pier-tools
- Auto-update with minisign-verified bundles
- Launch at login via
SMAppService - Menu-bar native — true tray app, signed + notarized
git clone https://github.com/KenTaniguchi-R/pier
cd pier
npm install
npm run tauri:dev # run the app
npm run tauri build # produce a local DMGOutput: src-tauri/target/release/bundle/dmg/Pier_*.dmg. See CLAUDE.md for the architecture map.
Full tools.json schema
{
"id": "kebab-case-id",
"name": "Display Name",
"command": "/absolute/path/to/binary",
"args": ["{input}"],
"parameters": [
{ "id": "input", "type": "file", "accepts": [".mp4"] }
],
"cwd": "/path/to/project",
"envFile": ".env",
"env": { "DEBUG": "1", "API_KEY": "${keychain:my-key}" },
"description": "One line",
"icon": "▸",
"confirm": false,
"category": "media"
}Args reference parameters with {paramId}. cwd sets the working directory; envFile loads a .env relative to cwd; env supports ${keychain:NAME} and ${env:NAME} interpolation. See examples/tools.json.
Architecture
Tauri 2 + React 19 + TypeScript. Clean architecture on both sides:
- Frontend:
domain/→application/→infrastructure/→ui/(atomic) +state/(Context + reducer) - Backend:
domain/→application/→infrastructure/+ thincommands.rs
Full map in CLAUDE.md.
v0.x, actively developed. macOS only for now (Linux/Windows on the table once the macOS UX settles).
MIT