Search your GitHub repositories like using Spotlight.

StarLight lives in your menu bar. Press a global shortcut anywhere, type a few characters, and open or copy any repository you have starred, own, or share with one of your organizations — without leaving the keyboard or waiting on the network.

• Spotlight-style search panel — summoned by a global keyboard shortcut you choose.
• Three sources in one list — repositories you starred, repositories you own, and every repository under the organizations you belong to, deduplicated into a single result list.
• Search across every field — repository name, owner/repo, description, language, and topics. Multi-word queries match when every word hits at least one field.
• Works offline — both lists are cached on disk and searchable immediately at launch, even before the first network round trip finishes.
• Cheap background refresh — instead of re-downloading every page on a timer, StarLight probes the newest and last pages of your starred list and only re-paginates when the set actually changed (or once a day, whichever comes first).
• Private repositories are opt-in — off by default, so StarLight only ever asks for read access to public data unless you decide otherwise.
• Pick what Return does — open the repository URL, copy it, or both.
• Device Flow sign-in — no client secret shipped in the app, so signing in on a new Mac does not sign out the old one.
• Menu bar only — no dock icon unless a window is open.

• macOS 13.0 or later
• A GitHub account. By default StarLight requests the read:user and public_repo scopes; turning on Include Private Repositories asks for read:user, repo, and read:org instead.

Download a build. Grab StarLight-<version>.zip from the latest release. Releases are signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple, so they open without a Gatekeeper prompt.

Or build from source. Xcode 16 or later is recommended:

git clone https://github.com/Mx-Iris/StarLight.git
cd StarLight
open StarLight.xcworkspace   # open the workspace, not the .xcodeproj

Pick the StarLight scheme and run. Dependencies resolve through Swift Package Manager on first build.

1. Set a shortcut. Open Settings from the menu bar icon and record a hotkey next to StarLight Hotkeys.
2. Search. Press the hotkey from any app, type part of a repository name, description, language, or topic, and press Return to trigger your chosen action. Press the hotkey again — or Escape — to dismiss the panel.
3. Menu bar menu. Click the star icon for Show Main Window, Settings…, Refresh (forces a full re-fetch of both lists), and Quit. The icon turns into a spinner while a refresh is running.

GitHub publishes no read-only OAuth scope for private repositories. The narrowest scope that can read them is repo, which also grants write access, so StarLight does not request it unless you turn Include Private Repositories on. Doing so also requests read:org, which is what lets StarLight see organizations whose membership you have kept private.

StarLight only ever reads. If you would rather not grant the wider scope, leave the toggle off and the app keeps working across your public repositories.

Turning the toggle back off hides private repositories from search immediately, but it does not revoke the grant or delete the cache on disk. To revoke it, use Settings → Manage Authorizations on GitHub.

StarLight authenticates with GitHub using the OAuth Device Flow. When you launch the app for the first time and click Sign in with GitHub, the app shows a short user code, copies it to your clipboard, and opens github.com/login/device in your browser. Paste the code on that page to grant access.

The Device Flow does not require a client secret to be shipped inside the app, so:

• StarLight can be used on as many devices as you like without each new login knocking the previous device offline.
• When signed out, protected menu commands and the global keyboard shortcut open the sign-in window instead of presenting authenticated content.
• To revoke access at any time, open Settings → Manage Authorizations on GitHub, or visit github.com/settings/applications.

Your access token is stored in the local login keychain with iCloud sync explicitly disabled — it never leaves the Mac it was created on. If GitHub ever rejects the token, StarLight clears it, closes the authenticated windows, and reopens the sign-in window with an explanation.

These caches hold repository metadata — names, descriptions, topics — as plain JSON. With Include Private Repositories on, that covers your private repositories too. Repository contents are never downloaded.

Upgrading from 1.7 or earlier renames the two starred cache files, which happens automatically on first launch and does not cost you a full re-fetch.

Contributors and coding agents should start with AGENTS.md, which documents the architecture, build commands, and repository conventions in one place.