Steward

Steward is a macOS menu bar app for four text workflows:

• Refine rewrites selected text in place.
• Capture extracts Markdown from a selected screen region.
• Dictate records speech and inserts the cleaned transcript into the focused app.
• Clipboard keeps a searchable local history of copied text.

Steward uses curated OpenAI and Gemini model lists. Providers are unlocked in Preferences > Providers, and each feature picks its own compatible model in Refine, Capture, or Dictate.

Features

Refine

1. Select text in any app.
2. Press Command+Shift+F.
3. Steward replaces the selection with refined text from the configured model.

Capture

1. Press Command+Shift+R.
2. Drag to select a screen region.
3. Steward extracts Markdown and copies it to the clipboard.

Dictate

1. Hold the Dictate shortcut to record. Default: Control+Shift+Space.
2. Quick double press the same shortcut to latch Dictate without holding.
3. While latched, press the shortcut once more to stop and transcribe.
4. If Dictate is started from the menu bar item, Steward uses the manual toggle flow with Cancel and OK.
5. Steward can bias recognition toward up to 5 preferred languages, or auto-detect when none are selected.

Dictate preserves the spoken language by default, applies punctuation and paragraph formatting, and falls back to the clipboard if direct insertion fails.

Clipboard History

1. Enable recording in Preferences > Clipboard.
2. Open Clipboard History from the menu bar.
3. Search, review, or delete stored entries.

Setup

Requirements:

• macOS 15.0+
• At least one provider API key:
  • OpenAI: platform.openai.com
  • Gemini: aistudio.google.com

First launch:

1. Open Steward.app.
2. Grant Accessibility permission for text selection and replacement.
3. Grant Microphone permission for Dictate.
4. Grant Screen Recording permission for Capture.
5. Open Preferences > Providers and add API keys for the providers you want.
6. Open Preferences > Refine, Capture, and Dictate to choose models, shortcuts, language preferences, and optional custom instructions.

Build

See BUILD_INSTRUCTIONS.md for full build details.

make build
make test
make fmt
open Steward.app

Privacy

• API keys and settings are stored locally in UserDefaults.
• Clipboard history is stored locally at ~/Library/Application Support/Steward/clipboard-history.jsonl.
• Clipboard history is enabled by default until you disable it.
• Requests are sent only to the provider and model selected for each feature.
• Dictate sends recorded audio only to the configured Dictate provider.

Dependencies

• HotKey
• Defaults

License

MIT