Glint is a menu-bar Git client: a reimagining of GitHub Desktop's ideas built on
Tauri + Rust instead of Electron. It lives in the macOS menu bar, uses native
NSVisualEffectView translucency for real liquid glass, and ships swappable
themes as CSS token sets.
- Tiny. System webview (WebKit) + a Rust core - no bundled Chromium. Megabytes, not hundreds of them.
- Glassy. Native vibrancy behind a transparent webview; themes tint the glass.
- Menu-bar native. A tray-positioned panel that toggles on click and dismisses on blur.
- Yours. Every theme is a handful of tokens - drop one in and it appears.
Same structure, swapped tokens. Light or dark, the glass never changes - only the tint and accent do.
glint/
├─ src/ Frontend (system webview) - HTML/CSS/JS, no framework
│ ├─ index.html The glass panel
│ ├─ styles.css Glass + theme variables
│ ├─ themes.js Theme token sets (add themes here)
│ ├─ app.js Theme switching + Git rendering, calls Rust over IPC
│ └─ vendor/tabler/ Vendored icon webfont (offline, no CDN)
└─ src-tauri/ Rust core
├─ src/main.rs Tray, transparent window, vibrancy, IPC commands
├─ src/git.rs Git status (via `git` CLI - see note below)
├─ tauri.conf.json Window: transparent, borderless, always-on-top
└─ capabilities/ Permissions
The full visual spec lives in docs/design-language.md - the glass recipe, radius scale, the seven-token theme model, and the CSS→AppKit mapping, all pixel-exact to the concept.
src/git.rs currently shells out to the git CLI (status --porcelain=2) so the
first build is fast and dependency-free. Planned upgrade: migrate to
git2 (libgit2 bindings) for in-process reads, then native
push/pull with credential handling, and octocrab for PR status.
Prerequisites: Rust, Node (for the Tauri CLI convenience scripts), and
cargo-tauri (cargo install tauri-cli --version '^2').
# from glint/
cargo tauri dev # or: npm run devLook for the Glint icon in your menu bar; click it to toggle the panel. Click the selector in the header to point it at a real repo, or it shows sample data.
Each built-in theme is an entry in src/themes.js - an accent color, a swatch,
and the glass tint/ink variables. Drop in another object and it appears as a
swatch automatically.
Your own themes, from disk. Glint also reads user-authored themes at launch.
Drop a .json file into the app config dir's themes/ folder and it shows up as
a swatch alongside the built-ins:
| OS | Folder |
|---|---|
| macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/dev.peterdsp.glint/themes/ |
| Linux | ~/.config/dev.peterdsp.glint/themes/ |
| Windows | %APPDATA%\dev.peterdsp.glint\themes\ |
{
"label": "Nord - arctic",
"swatch": "#88c0d0",
"vars": {
"--accent": "#88c0d0",
"--tint": "rgba(46, 52, 64, 0.55)",
"--tint-2": "rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.08)",
"--field": "rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.10)",
"--stroke": "rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.18)",
"--ink": "#eceff4",
"--ink-2": "#a6adbb"
}
}The key defaults to the file name; invalid files are skipped, never fatal.
Glint targets macOS, Windows, and Linux. The glass is native where the OS
provides it - NSVisualEffectView on macOS, Mica on Windows - and falls back to
the CSS tint on Linux. The tray glyph is a monochrome template on macOS and the
colored icon elsewhere. Every build is checked on all three in CI.
- Migrate
git.rstogit2 - Native push/pull + credentials
- PR status via
octocrab - Diff / merge-conflict "pop-out" window
- Monochrome template tray icon
- Vendor the icon font (drop the CDN link) for full offline use
- User-authored themes from disk
See the open issues for the live backlog.
Copyright (c) 2026 Petros Dhespollari. All rights reserved.
Glint is proprietary, source-visible software. The source may be reviewed for personal educational purposes, but copying, redistribution, derivative works, competing use, commercial reuse, AI training, and circumvention of the paid license system are prohibited without written permission.
Official builds may be used under the end-user terms in LICENSE. Third-party components remain under their respective licenses.