Clover, start to finish.

Install

You need macOS 26 or later (Clover uses Apple’s new on-device speech) and one AI: Claude Code on a Claude plan, the Antigravity CLI on your Google plan, an API key, or Ollama.

Download the app

1. Download the latest Clover-vX.Y.Z-macOS.zip. Each release also carries a .sha256 checksum.
2. Unzip it and move Clover.app into ~/Applications.
3. The build is signed ad hoc, not notarized, so the first time right-click it and choose Open, or run:

Or install with one line

This checks your Mac, downloads Clover to ~/.clover, builds ~/Applications/Clover.app, starts it at login and keeps it updated. It needs Apple’s command line tools (xcode-select --install).

Nix

Run it again to update. Nix installs show this update path in Settings instead of Clover’s own updater.

First run

The first launch opens a short setup that checks your AI and walks through each macOS permission one at a time: Microphone, Speech Recognition, Accessibility (to move windows and type), Screen Recording (to see what you’re asking about) and, if you want them, Calendars and Automation.

Two fingers sideways turn the page in setup, the same as Back and Continue. You can reopen setup from the menu bar any time.

Choose your AI

Settings → Intelligence → AI provider. Test connection makes one tiny real call and tells you exactly what’s wrong: a bad key, a wrong deployment, an unreachable server.

Cheapest keeps every ask on the fast model, Balanced moves long jobs to the work model, Most capable always uses the work model. You can also switch from the model chip in the box.

The shortcut and the box

Hold ⌃ ⌥ space, talk, and let go. Choose Hold to talk or Press to toggle in Settings → General → Shortcut behavior, or record your own shortcut.

• Pressing the shortcut while Clover answers stops it; while it’s speaking, it stops the voice. esc cancels listening without sending.
• Hover the box and a typing field grows in; type instead of talking whenever you like. Press ↑ in an empty field to recall your last request.
• Click an answer to copy it. Click your request to edit it and ask again.
• Under every answer: Copy, Read aloud and Follow up. Code blocks get their own Copy button; links become chips with their site.
• Drag the box anywhere; drag an edge to resize it. While Clover works in a covered window, another Space or another display, a live mini screen shows that window.

Hands-free

Turn on Wake word in Settings → General → Hands-free (it’s off by default). The word is “Clover” unless you type your own; say it with or without “hey”. A little chirp means it’s listening. Speech is recognized on your Mac only, and macOS shows the orange mic dot while the wake word is on.

After each answer Clover listens again, reads answers aloud (Settings → Read answers aloud in hands-free chats) and plays a soft chime when it’s your turn. Clicking other apps never closes a hands-free chat.

Voice commands

These never reach the AI:

Gestures

Clover answers the trackpad the way Apple’s own apps do. Turn gestures off in Settings → General → Gestures.

How it feels

• Momentum counts. A flick is judged by where its momentum would land, not where your fingers stopped, and the spring starts at the speed you let go.
• You can catch it. Fingers back on the trackpad while the box is springing, and it stops right there under them.
• The trackpad ticks on a Force Touch trackpad when a gesture passes its point of no return, and again when it lands.
• Edges stretch. Where there’s nowhere to go, things give a little and come back instead of stopping dead.
• Scrolling stays scrolling. Only clearly sideways (or, on a card, clearly downward) movement counts, never over a table or code block that scrolls that way.
• Reduce Motion turns every spring and flight into a quick fade.

Dictate anywhere

Hold fn to talk, let go to insert. Double-tap to lock it on. Your words land in whatever text field has the cursor.

• Verbatim types Apple’s on-device transcript, with no AI.
• Clean up makes one quick AI pass that keeps your words, fixes what it clearly misheard, drops the “um”s, honours “scratch that” and turns “new line” into formatting. It never answers or acts on what you dictate.
• For other languages pick Whisper in Settings → General → Speech model. It runs whisper.cpp on your Mac.

Settings → Dictation keeps a searchable history and your own words, so names and jargon come out right.

Point and draw

Click Point at your screen next to the mic, then click, circle or scribble on anything and ask about it. The other way round, ask “where do I…?” and a ring lights up the spot, or ask “explain this and draw it” and Clover draws boxes, arrows and labels over your screen one step at a time, like a whiteboard.

Agents, routines and watching

Ask for something big (“find me USB-C hubs under $40”) and Clover hands it to a background agent while you keep working. A chip shows its live steps; the Agents window has the full report.

• Routines: “every weekday at 8, summarize my calendar”.
• Watching: “tell me when the build is done” watches a window with no AI while it waits.

Agents and routines run on Claude Code.

Meeting Copilot

Enable it in Settings → Meetings. You get live answers during calls, local transcripts in ~/.config/clover/meetings/, and a recap afterwards: by your AI, or fully on your Mac if you turn AI summaries off.

Memory and learning

Say “remember…” and every ask after that knows it. Settings → Memory shows and edits what Clover remembers.

Ask for something new once and Clover works out the steps; ask again and it runs in a blink, with no AI. Opening apps, moving windows, playing music and web searches never need AI at all. Teach it phrases too: “when I say focus mode, close Slack and open my to-do list.”

Permissions and safety

Settings → Account & Access → Safety has three modes:

Calendar changes show the old and new time on a card first. Adding is immediate; moving or deleting asks. Replies Clover writes go at your cursor. It never sends them.

Privacy

• Apple’s on-device speech turns your voice into text. Audio never leaves your Mac.
• Clover sends nothing anywhere except to the AI you chose.
• No account, no telemetry. Anonymous usage counts exist only in builds that set CLOVER_POSTHOG_KEY; the releases here don’t.
• Meeting transcripts, memory and settings live in ~/.config/clover.

Updates and uninstall

Clover starts at login and updates itself when it’s idle. Turn that off in Settings → About & Updates. Every version bump on main is built by CI and published to Releases.

Remove Clover

Then delete ~/Applications/Clover.app, ~/.clover, ~/.config/clover and ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.hackyard.clover.plist.

Build from source

• Clover.swift: the app. Hotkey, wake word, speech, overlay, sounds, gestures, windows.
• clover.py: the brain. Instant commands, the system prompt, helpers for windows, web and screen, and the safety gate.
• clover_engine.py: Clover’s own model engine for API keys.
• ui/: the overlay, setup, Settings, agents and meeting pages, the orb and the sound pack.

Run the offline checks with python3 -m unittest discover -s tests. For the pages, serve the repo with python3 -m http.server and open tests/ui.html: it uses a mock bridge and makes no Mac actions or AI calls. See CONTRIBUTING.md.