#Swift
#SwiftUI
macOS
Every task pulls you somewhere else. A note means opening Notion. A reply means opening Gmail. A meeting means opening Calendar. By the time you've opened the third app just to deal with one thing you selected, you've lost the thread of what you were actually doing.
Lumen skips all of that. Select anything on your screen , a date, an email, a line of code - tap three fingers on your trackpad, and a small dial appears right where you're looking. It already knows what to do with it: add it to your calendar, save it to Notion, send it to Slack, fix the bug. No new window, no app switch, no losing your place.
Turns out the fastest way to get something done is to never leave what you're doing.
Every task pulls you somewhere else. A note means opening Notion. A reply means opening Gmail. A meeting means opening Calendar. By the time you've opened the third app just to deal with one thing you selected, you've lost the thread of what you were actually doing.
Lumen skips all of that. Select anything on your screen , a date, an email, a line of code - tap three fingers on your trackpad, and a small dial appears right where you're looking. It already knows what to do with it: add it to your calendar, save it to Notion, send it to Slack, fix the bug. No new window, no app switch, no losing your place.
Turns out the fastest way to get something done is to never leave what you're doing.
2026 - Present
Timeline
2026 - Present
Timeline
About
About
Lumen is a macOS menu bar app that reads whatever text you've selected, in any app and gives you context-aware actions through a radial dial. Built with Swift, SwiftUI, and AppKit, it taps into a private multitouch framework to detect a three-finger gesture, and Apple's Accessibility APIs to read your selection without you lifting a finger past that.
The dial isn't the same every time. A phone number gets Call and Message. A code snippet gets Explain and Solve. A date gets Add to Calendar and Remind me. A five-signal classifier figures out what you're looking at in milliseconds, and the right actions, chat with AI, save to Notion, send to Slack, create a Linear issue — are one tap away.
Lumen is a macOS menu bar app that reads whatever text you've selected, in any app and gives you context-aware actions through a radial dial. Built with Swift, SwiftUI, and AppKit, it taps into a private multitouch framework to detect a three-finger gesture, and Apple's Accessibility APIs to read your selection without you lifting a finger past that.
The dial isn't the same every time. A phone number gets Call and Message. A code snippet gets Explain and Solve. A date gets Add to Calendar and Remind me. A five-signal classifier figures out what you're looking at in milliseconds, and the right actions, chat with AI, save to Notion, send to Slack, create a Linear issue — are one tap away.
Build
Build
1
The Gesture
Built a three-finger tap detector using Apple's private MultitouchSupport framework, since there's no public API for custom trackpad gestures. Paired it with the Accessibility API to read selected text from any app, with a clipboard fallback for browsers that don't expose it.
1
The Gesture
Built a three-finger tap detector using Apple's private MultitouchSupport framework, since there's no public API for custom trackpad gestures. Paired it with the Accessibility API to read selected text from any app, with a clipboard fallback for browsers that don't expose it.
2
The Dial
Designed and built the radial menu from scratch with CALayers and NSBezierPath, nothing off-the-shelf fit the interaction. A five-signal classifier scores your selection against patterns for code, dates, emails, phone numbers, and URLs to decide what the dial should show.
2
The Dial
Designed and built the radial menu from scratch with CALayers and NSBezierPath, nothing off-the-shelf fit the interaction. A five-signal classifier scores your selection against patterns for code, dates, emails, phone numbers, and URLs to decide what the dial should show.
3
The Actions
Built out a flow for every content type: Define and Summarize for text, Explain and Solve for code, Compose and Find past emails, Call and Message, Calendar and Reminders. Each opens its own lightweight window, positioned near your selection so it's never in your way.
3
The Actions
Built out a flow for every content type: Define and Summarize for text, Explain and Solve for code, Compose and Find past emails, Call and Message, Calendar and Reminders. Each opens its own lightweight window, positioned near your selection so it's never in your way.
4
The Connectors
Wired up Notion, Gmail, Slack, and Linear so you can send what you selected straight to where it belongs - a Notion page, a Slack canvas, a Linear issue, without copying anything by hand.
4
The Connectors
Wired up Notion, Gmail, Slack, and Linear so you can send what you selected straight to where it belongs - a Notion page, a Slack canvas, a Linear issue, without copying anything by hand.
Tools
Tools
Swift
MacOS
Conclusion
Lumen isn't trying to replace the apps you already use. It's trying to remove the seven seconds of friction between having a question and getting it answered.
Most AI tools ask you to come to them. Lumen just shows up wherever you already are.