gaudi-sketchybar

A two-bar sketchybar setup for macOS — a top bar for notifications + status, a bottom bar for system stats and yabai spaces. Lean Bash plugins, a shared popup factory, and per-app notification widgets that read directly from each app's local data (no hosted services).

What's in the box

Top bar — right: datetime · battery · network · (opt-in: github)

Top bar — left: weather + a row of notification pills. Each notification pill shows a count on the bar and a hover-popup with per-item detail. All popups share the same chrome (rounded card, dim border, hover-highlight rows, clickable header that opens the app).

Widget	Source	What it shows
weather	wttr.in	Current temp + 3-day forecast popup
notif_calendar	icalBuddy + Apple Calendar	Pill = next event title, popup = today + tomorrow
notif_mail	AppleScript Mail.app	Pill = unread count, popup = recent unread
notif_whatsapp	Dock badge + macOS notification DB	Pill = unread count, popup = recent chats
notif_notion	Notion REST API	Pill = open task count, popup = per-task with priority/deadline
notif_slack	Decrypted d cookie + Slack's client.counts	Pill = mention count, popup = per-channel split into Mentions / Messages
github	gh api graphql	Pill = total, popup = Mentions / Review Requested / Assigned

Bottom bar — right: live system stats grouped into pill cards — [net] [cpu] [mem] [ssd] (a fifth sys_pill with loadavg + uptime is wired up but hidden by default — set HIDE_SYS_PILL=0 in sketchybarrc_bottom to surface it). Driven by stats_provider (1s tick) + macmon for CPU temperature.

Bottom bar — left: yabai spaces with per-app icons (active app bright, others dimmed).

Install

# Required
brew tap FelixKratz/formulae
brew install sketchybar jq

# Bottom-bar stats engine
brew tap joncrangle/tap
brew install sketchybar-system-stats
brew install vladkens/tap/macmon       # CPU temp (provider's CPU_TEMP is broken on Apple Silicon)

# Per-widget deps (only what you'll enable)
brew install ical-buddy                # notif_calendar
brew install gh                        # github
brew install koekeishiya/formulae/yabai # bottom-bar spaces

# Nerd Font for icons
brew install --cask font-meslo-lg-nerd-font

# App-icon font for the yabai spaces row
# https://github.com/kvndrsslr/sketchybar-app-font (download the .ttf,
# double-click to install)

Clone + first-run

git clone https://github.com/g-udi/gaudi-sketchybar ~/.config/sketchybar/gaudi-sketchybar
cd  ~/.config/sketchybar/gaudi-sketchybar
./setup.sh                              # copies example configs into place
brew services start sketchybar

setup.sh is idempotent — re-running it never overwrites your customised configs.

Wire up the top-bar shim

If you don't have a ~/.config/sketchybar/sketchybarrc already, point it at this repo:

mkdir -p ~/.config/sketchybar
cat > ~/.config/sketchybar/sketchybarrc <<'EOF'
#!/bin/bash
exec ~/.config/sketchybar/gaudi-sketchybar/sketchybarrc
EOF
chmod +x ~/.config/sketchybar/sketchybarrc

The bottom bar is spawned automatically by the top bar's sketchybarrc (see its tail — it execs a renamed sketchybar_bottom binary).

# Create the renamed binary used by the bottom bar's mach service.
ln -sf "$(brew --prefix)/bin/sketchybar" "$(brew --prefix)/bin/sketchybar_bottom"

Configure

Almost everything user-specific lives in two files (both .gitignored):

File	What
lib/configs.sh	Layout arrays — which widgets show and in what order
lib/plugins/notif_notion/config.json	Notion DB(s) to query (template at config.example.json)

Both are bootstrapped from their *.example.* counterparts by setup.sh.

Enable a notification widget

Open lib/configs.sh and uncomment the relevant line under GAUDI_TOP_LEFT (or GAUDI_TOP_RIGHT for github), then reload:

brew services restart sketchybar

Each plugin's header comment (lib/plugins/<widget>/index.sh) has the specific setup steps. The non-trivial ones:

notif_notion

1. Create a Notion integration at https://www.notion.so/my-integrations, copy the secret
2. echo 'ntn_…' > ~/.config/gaudi/notion_token && chmod 600 ~/.config/gaudi/notion_token
3. Share each DB you want to query with the integration in Notion's UI
4. Edit lib/plugins/notif_notion/config.json with the DB id(s) + filter

notif_slack

• Just have the Slack desktop app installed and logged in. On first launch the widget triggers a macOS keychain prompt for "Slack Safe Storage" — click Always Allow so the daemon stays headless.
• The widget decrypts the d cookie from the Slack container, mines the active xoxc from leveldb strings, and hits Slack's undocumented client.counts. Tokens rotate every few months — re-launch Slack to refresh if the popup ever goes blank.

notif_calendar

• icalBuddy needs Calendars permission. The widget runs icalBuddy from sketchybar's process tree which inherits sketchybar's own Calendar grant — usually no manual step needed. If the popup says ICALBUDDY NEEDS CALENDARS ACCESS, add /opt/homebrew/bin/icalBuddy to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Calendars manually.

notif_whatsapp

• Install WhatsApp desktop from the Mac App Store; turn on notifications in both WhatsApp → Settings → Notifications and System Settings → Notifications → WhatsApp (otherwise the macOS notification DB stays empty and the popup has nothing to show).

Customise

• Top-bar widget order: edit GAUDI_TOP_LEFT / GAUDI_TOP_RIGHT arrays in lib/configs.sh
• Weather location: export WEATHER_LOCATION="Berlin" before sketchybar starts
• Colours: lib/colors.sh — every widget's pill colour is one line
• Popup chrome: lib/popup.sh — header height, row hover speed, etc.
• Padding / sizing: style.sh — GAUDI_BOTTOM_Y_OFFSET, gauge widths, etc.
• GitHub custom queries: drop a lib/plugins/github/custom.sh (gitignored) that exports CUSTOM_SECTIONS=("triage") + a render_custom() function — the widget loads it and renders extra popup sections (e.g. an org-wide triage query). Example skeleton at the bottom of lib/plugins/github/index.sh.

Architecture notes

sketchybarrc                  ← top bar entry point
sketchybarrc_bottom           ← bottom bar entry point (sketchybar_bottom binary)
style.sh                      ← layout tokens + default-property arrays
lib/
  colors.sh                   ← palette + per-widget colour aliases
  icons.sh                    ← Nerd Font glyphs
  common.sh                   ← sourced by every plugin (loads the three above)
  configs.sh                  ← layout (gitignored; copy from configs.example.sh)
  popup.sh                    ← shared popup primitives (header, sections, rows, empty state)
  popup_hover.sh              ← per-row mouse-hover dispatcher
  popup_closer.sh             ← click-outside-dismiss observer
  plugins/<widget>/index.sh   ← one folder per widget; each is self-contained

Two daemons:

• sketchybar runs the top bar
• sketchybar_bottom is a symlink to the same binary; macOS treats the different argv[0] as a separate mach service so the two bars don't fight

Click-outside-to-dismiss is handled by a single observer (popup_closer.sh) subscribed to mouse.exited.global + front_app_switched. Add a new popup widget by appending its item name to POPUP_OWNERS there.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Credits

• FelixKratz/SketchyBar — the bar engine
• joncrangle/sketchybar-system-stats — bottom-bar stats provider
• vladkens/macmon — CPU temperature on Apple Silicon
• kvndrsslr/sketchybar-app-font — yabai space app icons (and Notion + WhatsApp logos)
• Original gaudi.ubersicht.widget — colour palette and layout spirit