Project file 04 / Keyboard launcher

Open Palette

An open-source, keyboard-first launcher for opening apps, running commands and taking notes without touching the mouse.

Electron
React
TypeScript
Vite
Vitest
Biome

Overview

Open Palette is an open-source launcher for macOS, Windows and Linux, in the spirit of Raycast. Press one shortcut, type a few letters and press Return to open an app, run a command, do a quick calculation, find something you copied or jot down a note. Version 1.0.0 is out, with installers for every platform on GitHub.

What you can do

Open anything

It finds installed apps on every platform and falls back to a web search on Google, DuckDuckGo or any extension that offers one. The things you use most rise to the top.

Notes as Markdown files

A floating Notes window has search, autosave and a pin to keep it on top. Every note is a plain .md file, so pointing it at a synced folder puts your notes everywhere.

Calculator and clipboard history

Sums like 1200 * 1.077 + 2^5 are answered as you type, and Return copies the result. Clipboard history is searchable and skips anything password managers mark as private.

Actions and extensions

⌘K lists everything you can do with the selected item. Extensions are commands written in JavaScript, and they can do anything the built-in commands can.

How it works

Press ⌥Space (Alt+Space on Windows and Linux) to open the launcher.
Type a few letters to find an app, a note, a command or a calculation.
Press Return to run it, or ⌘K to see every action for the selected item.

Behind the build

Extensions in their own process

Third-party extensions run in a separate Electron utility process, so a slow or crashing extension can't take the launcher down with it. Built-in commands implement the same interface as extensions and go through the same command registry.

Typing never waits

Root search, fuzzy matching and the calculator run in the launcher window itself, so results update without a round trip to the main process.

Released like a product

Conventional Commits and release-please produce each version and changelog, and GitHub Actions builds installers on macOS, Windows and Linux for every release. Vitest covers the core logic, Playwright drives the built app end to end, Biome handles linting and CodeQL scans the code. It is MIT licensed.