Octodot

Octodot is a native macOS menu bar app for triaging GitHub notifications with a keyboard-first workflow. It is built for fast inbox processing.

CleanShot.2026-04-17.at.12.43.54.mp4

Overview

Octodot lives in the macOS menu bar and opens a focused notifications panel. It is designed for quick review and triage without keeping the GitHub inbox open in a browser.

Current behavior includes:

• unread badge state in the menu bar icon
• Inbox and Unread inbox modes
• Inbox is designed to feel closer to GitHub's active inbox rather than a raw archive feed
• repository grouping with recency-aware ordering
• optimistic local actions that survive refreshes and relaunches
• background polling that respects GitHub polling headers
• configurable global shortcut
• Vim-style navigation and commands
• native settings window for account, appearance, and shortcuts
• pull request CI status indicators in the list
• Dependabot/security alerts layered into Inbox

Installation

brew install jasonlong/tap/octodot

Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or newer.

Then launch Octodot and sign in with a classic GitHub PAT with notifications and repo scopes.

Authentication

Octodot currently uses a classic GitHub Personal Access Token with the notifications and repo scopes.

The app validates the token against GitHub, then stores it in the macOS Keychain.

Shortcuts

The app is intentionally keyboard-centric.

• j / k: move selection
• Up / Down: move selection
• ctrl-f or Space: page down
• ctrl-b: page up
• ctrl-d / ctrl-u: half-page down / up
• gg / G: jump to top / bottom
• Home / End: jump to top / bottom
• o or Return: open in browser and mark read
• d: mark done
• u: unsubscribe
• x: toggle the current row's selection for bulk actions (d, u, o apply to every checked row when the set is non-empty)
• y: copy URL
• a: toggle Inbox / Unread
• s: toggle repo grouping
• /: enter search
• return or tab in search: keep filter, return to list
• esc in search: clear filter, return to list
• r: force refresh
• Esc: close panel

Global hotkey:

• configurable in Settings
• defaults to ⌘'

Settings

Octodot includes a native settings window with:

• General: appearance and launch-at-login behavior
• Shortcuts: global shortcut recorder and full panel keybinding reference
• Account: sign in, update token, sign out
• About: version information and signed in-app update checks