BrewMenu

A native macOS menu bar app that monitors Homebrew health in the background.

BrewMenu is not a CLI wrapper with a GUI. It watches your Homebrew installation over time — outdated packages, doctor warnings, pending cleanups, stopped services — and surfaces that information passively from the menu bar.

Features

• Outdated package list with installed and available versions
• brew upgrade with real-time streaming output and cancel support
• brew doctor integration — warnings and errors surfaced in the popover
• Service monitor — view and start/stop Homebrew services
• Insights engine — detects stale updates, cleanup opportunities, abandoned casks, and more
• Configurable check frequency (hourly, every 6 hours, daily, or manual)
• Native notifications for new updates, doctor warnings, upgrade failures, and completions
• Badge count on the menu bar icon showing number of pending updates
• English and Spanish, following system language
• Logs to ~/Library/Application Support/BrewMenu/logs/brewmenu.log with 5 MB rotation

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
• Homebrew installed at /opt/homebrew (Apple Silicon), /usr/local (Intel), or a custom path

Installation

brew install --cask dotfn/tap/brewmenu

To update:

brew upgrade --cask brewmenu

Building from source

Requires Xcode Command Line Tools or Xcode.

git clone https://github.com/dotfn/brewmenu.git
cd brewmenu
swift build

To assemble a release .app bundle:

./scripts/build-release.sh 1.0.0

This produces build/BrewMenu-1.0.0.zip with an ad-hoc signed .app.

Tests (unit only — integration tests that call real brew are in a separate target):

swift test

Project layout

Sources/
  BrewMenuApp/        @main, MenuBarExtra, scene composition
  Features/
    MenuBar/          Popover UI and view model
    Settings/         Preferences window
    Notifications/    UserNotifications wrappers
  Services/
    BrewService       Single point that executes brew. Actor.
    EnvironmentResolver   Detects brew path and shell environment
    StatusChecker     Periodic check scheduling
    HistoryStore      Snapshot persistence (JSON, 30-day rotation)
    InsightEngine     Pure function: [Snapshot] -> [Insight]
  Models/             OutdatedPackage, Snapshot, Insight, etc.
Tests/
  BrewMenuTests/              Unit tests, no real brew
  BrewMenuIntegrationTests/   Call real brew, skipped in CI

License

MIT