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The aurora shows through a see-through menu bar, so the first thing to check is the bar itself:

1. System Settings › Menu Bar — “Show menu bar background” has to be off.
2. Reduce Transparency (Accessibility › Display) hides it completely. Settings › General says so when that is on.
3. If your menu bar hides automatically, the app pauses itself.
4. In Settings › Display, try Over the menu bar. That draws on top of the bar instead of behind it, so it shows whatever the bar is doing.

Still nothing? Click the Aurora Glass icon in your menu bar and choose Settings…. While nothing is drawing, the first card on General says why, in plain words; otherwise open Report a problem on About. One button sends that to me. More on sending a report.

First make sure the aurora command works in Terminal. Installed with Homebrew, it already does; otherwise Settings › Agents has a button that puts it there. Then run this. It adds itself to ~/.claude/settings.json, keeps every hook and setting already there, backs the file up first, and changes nothing if you run it again:

aurora hooks --install

aurora hooks --uninstall takes out only what it added. To be told louder when an agent needs you, open Settings › Attention: When an agent needs you can drop tails of light below the bar.

From then on a light travels across the bar while an agent works. It turns amber when one needs you, even while others keep working, and it ripples when they have all finished — again every few seconds, so it is not missed if you looked away — or blinks if something failed. Everything the command can do.

In the app, open Look and use the This look card: Copy or Save… to send yours, Paste or Open… to use someone else’s. You can also build one in your browser and copy it across.

No. A normal install asks for nothing at all. Two optional extras do, and only when you switch them on: reacting to music needs to hear your Mac’s audio, and keeping the menu bar’s text crisp over a bright look needs to see the menu bar. Each says what it needs before you turn it on.

Nothing leaves your Mac on its own. Out of the box the app reaches the network in two ways, and only when you press the button for each. Send Report sends a diagnostic report, and Settings shows you every line of it first: it holds versions, your Mac model, screen sizes and the app’s own settings, with no file names and nothing from your screen. Check for Updates asks this website which version is newest, and sends nothing about you or your Mac. If you turn on usage, your own Claude Code or Codex asks Anthropic or OpenAI for your plan’s limits when the app starts and when the panel opens; Aurora Glass never sees your sign-in and keeps nothing.

Joining a fleet is the third way, and the only part of Aurora Glass that wants an account: you sign in with GitHub, free. It is off until you click Join Fleet in Settings › Fleet or run aurora login, and a machine that has joined sends its agents’ states and the times they changed — nothing else, until you switch a kind on yourself. aurora fleet status lists what this machine sends, aurora fleet preview shows the next batch exactly as it will go, and aurora logout stops it. More about fleets.

It is light: a few milliseconds of graphics work a frame and a small slice of one processor core. It stops entirely when your display sleeps, when you lock the screen and when a full-screen app is in front, and there is a switch to pause it on battery.

Yes, and it is the easiest way to get the aurora command too, because Homebrew puts it on your PATH:

brew install --cask gourneau/tap/aurora-glass

It is updated with every release, so brew upgrade --cask aurora-glass keeps it current.

Macs with Apple silicon, on macOS 26 Tahoe or later. It is checked by Apple, so it opens without a warning.

The live bar needs a browser with WebGPU: recent Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox have it. Without it, or with “reduce motion” on, the site shows a picture of the look instead. The app itself is unaffected either way.

Please tell me either way. The quickest route needs no account: Settings › About has a Send Report button, under Report a problem, which sends the version, the Mac and what the app is doing — most of what I would otherwise have to ask. Or paste a report here.

Otherwise open an issue if you have a GitHub account, or just email.