aiui Claude Desktop App can ask, confirm, and collect input — as real native macOS dialogs.

The chat is sometimes the wrong place

When Claude Desktop App has a question that's really a pick between options, you have to type the answer in prose. When it wants your go-ahead before touching production, you get a blue Yes/No box — and nothing more tailored.

There's a better way.

aiui lets Claude Desktop App open real, native dialogs on your Mac:

• "Which of these three deploy strategies?" A window with three cards, each with context. One click. Done.
• "Shall I drop the production orders table?" A red destructive button with a clear warning. One click.
• "Fill in name, role, start date." A clean form instead of a typing-heavy chat exchange.
• "Rank these five tickets in the order you want them." Drag to reorder, the order comes back as a clean list.
• "Here's the flow I'm proposing — does it look right?" A real diagram (Mermaid → SVG) instead of ASCII boxes-and-arrows that collapse into nonsense in proportional fonts.

The agent gets your answer as structured data and keeps going. No side conversations, no throwaway web dashboards cluttering your system — just a familiar macOS window that does what it looks like.

Works locally and remotely

Running Claude Desktop App directly on your Mac? aiui plugs in.

Running it over SSH on a remote machine (dev box, project VM)? aiui automatically sets up a tunnel so the remote agent can pop dialogs right on your Mac. Register the host once in settings; from then on it just works.

Install

No Terminal. No Homebrew. No Python. No uv.

1. Download aiui.app (DMG, Apple Silicon).
2. Drag into Applications.
3. Launch it once from Finder.

That's it. aiui registers itself with Claude Desktop App automatically. The MCP server ships inside the app bundle as native code, so you don't need a Python toolchain on your Mac.

From now on aiui runs silently in the background — only while Claude Desktop App is open. No dock icon, no menu-bar clutter, no lingering daemons. aiui tools are available in every Claude Desktop App session immediately; no per-project config needed.

Updates install themselves in the background. If you want to force a check, use /aiui:update in Claude Desktop App, or open aiui's settings window.

Quickstart

Open any Claude Desktop App session and try one of these — just write it as a normal message:

"Ask me with aiui which of three deploy strategies we want today."

"Confirm with aiui before you delete the test files."

"Use aiui to collect a new user's name, role, and start date."

That's the whole idea. The agent picks the right kind of dialog — yes/no, pick-from-options, or a multi-field form — opens it on your Mac, you click, it carries on with your answer.

The first time you do this in a fresh project, run /aiui:teach once. That briefs the agent on when to reach for aiui versus just typing back in chat — without it, the agent might forget aiui exists.

What you get

Privacy

aiui runs purely locally on your Mac. No telemetry, no usage data, no content leaves your system. A local auth token lives in ~/.config/aiui/ (mode 0600) and is only scp'd to hosts you explicitly register in settings.

Slash commands in Claude Desktop App

FAQ

Is it safe? aiui is open source (MIT), builds reproducibly, is Apple Developer-ID signed and notarized. It never phones home. The auth token stays under ~/.config/aiui/ on your machine and is only copied to hosts you explicitly register in settings.

Do I need uv or Python? No. Since v0.3.0 the MCP server ships inside the aiui.app bundle as native Rust code — drag-and-drop install with no outside dependencies.

For the special case of a remote SSH host that doesn't have aiui.app locally, the standalone Python package aiui-mcp is still on PyPI and gets used via uvx aiui-mcp. aiui registers that automatically when you add the remote in settings.

How much memory does it use? The companion idles around 30–50 MB. The underlying WebKit view loads only while a dialog is on screen.

Does it work on Intel Macs? Currently Apple Silicon (arm64) only. Intel support isn't on the immediate roadmap — open an issue if you need it.

Does it work on Linux or Windows? Linux: no. Windows: in progress — the Rust core and CI build already target Windows; interactive E2E testing and a first release are still outstanding. Follow #118 for status.

Can I use aiui without Claude Desktop? The companion is auto-spawned by Claude Desktop via its MCP registration, so in the default setup, no. You can launch aiui.app manually though — as long as localhost:7777 is reachable, any MCP client can render dialogs.

Why not just use Claude Desktop's built-in AskUserQuestion? It's great for single yes/no or single-choice questions, but doesn't cover multi-field forms, sortable lists, colour pickers, date ranges, or hierarchical pickers. aiui complements it.

Does aiui work in other MCP-capable clients? The aiui-mcp server is a standard MCP server, so technically yes. The companion is Claude Desktop-specific in how it auto-installs, but the HTTP protocol on localhost:7777 is client-agnostic.

Known limitations

• Apple Silicon only (M1 and later). Intel Macs are not yet supported.
• macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later.
• One Mac per companion. If you want dialogs on multiple Macs simultaneously, each needs its own aiui install; tokens and tunnels are per-Mac.
• Password fields mask input while typing but return the value as plaintext to the agent — see the widget catalog for guidance.
• No headless rendering. aiui needs an active macOS GUI session; it won't render dialogs on a server-style headless install.

Troubleshooting

Bugs or feature requests → open an issue. The "Report issue" button in settings pre-fills version and build SHA.

Open source

aiui is MIT-licensed, hosted at byte5ai/aiui. Pull requests and issues are welcome.

For developers & curious users

A bit more depth, in roughly increasing nerd-level:

• docs/skill.md — the agent-facing widget catalog. aiui installs this as a skill on first launch so Claude knows when to use which dialog and how to write the labels. Worth a skim if you want to understand what aiui can render.
• CONTRIBUTING.md — repository layout, build flow, release pipeline, design principles.
• docs/strategy.md — the product thinking behind aiui's V1/V2 split and what we deliberately don't build.
• aiui-mcp on PyPI — the Python MCP server, used automatically for remote SSH hosts that don't have aiui.app installed locally.