Ace

A minimal, stealth desktop chat overlay for OpenAI and Anthropic (Claude) — sign in with your own accounts, chat with streaming responses, attach files, dictate by voice, and browse your past conversations. Built with Tauri v2 + React + TypeScript.

Demo

Features

• Native OAuth login for OpenAI and Anthropic — uses your own subscription, no API keys or third-party servers.
• Streaming chat with a per-provider model picker.
• Provider-reactive UI — the accent color reflects who you're talking to (clay for Claude, green for OpenAI).
• Attachments — send images and files.
• Voice input — dictate a message; it's transcribed to text before you send (via OpenAI Whisper).
• Conversation history — browse and reopen your real past conversations from claude.ai and ChatGPT (see How history works).
• Stealth mode — hide the window from screenshots and screen shares (Windows/macOS).
• System tray — hide to tray with a customizable global shortcut (default Ctrl+Shift+A).
• Adjustable window opacity for an unobtrusive overlay.
• Auto-updates — Ace checks GitHub Releases on launch and can download, verify (signed), and install new versions in-place (Settings → Updates, or the in-app banner).

Platform support

Feature	Windows	macOS	Linux
Login, chat, models, attachments, voice, history, tray, shortcut	✅	✅	✅
Hide from screen capture	✅	✅¹	— ²
Window opacity	✅	✅¹	— ²

¹ Implemented but untested — the macOS-only code can't be compiled on Windows, so the first macOS build should verify it. ² No reliable cross-compositor API exists on Linux (Wayland forbids capture-exclusion; X11 has no standard). The app runs; these two controls are no-ops.

Windows is the primary, fully-tested platform. Each release also ships Linux and macOS builds from CI (see Releases); macOS is unsigned and the macOS window effects are implemented but not yet verified on real hardware.

How history works

Anthropic's inference OAuth token can't read conversation history, and claude.ai's web API is behind Cloudflare. Ace works around this using your own logged-in session, on your own machine:

• Any browser / OS: click Connect claude.ai in the history panel. Ace opens a real claude.ai login window (a genuine webview, so Cloudflare is solved normally), then reads the session from its own webview — no cookie decryption.
• Firefox fast-path (Windows/macOS): if you're already signed into claude.ai in Firefox, Ace reads that session automatically for zero-click history.

OpenAI (ChatGPT) history uses your OAuth token directly and works on any setup.

Install

Grab the latest build for your OS from Releases:

• Windows — Ace_x.y.z_x64-setup.exe (NSIS) or Ace_x.y.z_x64_en-US.msi (MSI). Unsigned, so SmartScreen warns on first run — click More info → Run anyway.
• Linux — Ace_x.y.z_amd64.AppImage (chmod +x then run), or the .deb / .rpm package.
• macOS — Ace_x.y.z_universal.dmg (runs on both Intel and Apple Silicon). Unsigned — right-click the app → Open on first launch, or run xattr -cr /Applications/Ace.app.

Build from source

Prerequisites: Node.js 18+, Rust, and the Tauri v2 system dependencies for your OS.

npm install
npm run tauri dev      # run in development
npm run tauri build    # produce installers in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/

Build on the OS you're targeting — Tauri cannot cross-compile macOS/Linux from Windows. Distributing a macOS build additionally requires Apple Developer signing + notarization.

Releasing updatable builds

Auto-update artifacts are signed with a minisign keypair. To cut a release that existing installs can update to:

export TAURI_SIGNING_PRIVATE_KEY="$(cat ~/.tauri/ace.key)"
export TAURI_SIGNING_PRIVATE_KEY_PASSWORD="<key password>"
npm run tauri build

This emits the installers plus *.sig signatures. Publish a latest.json manifest (version, pub_date, and per-platform signature + download url) alongside the installer on the GitHub release; the app's updater endpoint reads releases/latest/download/latest.json. Keep the private key secret — it is never committed. Losing it means no existing install can auto-update.

Tech stack

React · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS · Framer Motion · Zustand · Tauri v2 (Rust)

Privacy

Ace talks directly to OpenAI and Anthropic with your own credentials, stored in your OS keychain. Nothing is sent to any third-party server. The Firefox fast-path reads your local cookies.sqlite only to reuse an existing claude.ai session on your own machine.

License

PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0 — free to use, modify, and share for any noncommercial purpose. Commercial use is not permitted.