PR Pulse

The heartbeat of your GitHub pull requests, on your desktop.

PR Pulse is a developer-focused Electron widget for macOS, Windows, and Linux that keeps your GitHub pull request activity quietly visible while you work. Terminal-inspired, ambient, and keyboard-friendly.

"PR Pulse" is an independent open-source project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by GitHub, Inc.

Features

• Frameless, transparent floating panel with a neon-green terminal aesthetic
• Three window modes:
  • desktop — pinned to the macOS desktop layer, behind app windows (like the native Weather widget)
  • floating — always on top of other windows
  • normal — regular z-order
• macOS vibrancy so the widget blends into the wallpaper
• Tray entry point with refresh, settings, and quick toggle
• Global shortcut ⌥⌘G (Ctrl+Alt+G on Windows/Linux) to show/hide the widget
• Optional launch-at-login mode (starts hidden so notifications continue in background)
• Three PR sections:
  • Review requested from you
  • Assigned to you
  • Authored by you
• Dedicated approved by me lane plus an approved-only filter toggle
• Native desktop notifications for:
  • new review requests / assignments
  • new comments on your PRs
  • new commits pushed to open PRs
  • stale approvals after new pushes
  • draft → ready-for-review transitions
  • approvals
  • changes requested, merged, or closed PRs
• Persisted window position, size, opacity, notification preferences, and mode

Screenshots

Add a screenshot of the widget on your desktop here before publishing.

Installation

Download

Grab the latest PR Pulse-<version>-arm64.dmg (Apple Silicon) or PR Pulse-<version>-x64.dmg (Intel) from the releases page and drag PR Pulse.app into /Applications.

On first launch macOS will show a Gatekeeper warning because the app is unsigned. Right-click the app in /Applications → Open → Open to allow it. Only needed once.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/vasilisnakos/pr-pulse.git
cd pr-pulse
npm install
npm run dev              # develop with hot reload

Native builds (requires running on the target OS)

Output is placed in the builds/ directory.

Command	Output	Requires
npm run dist:mac	.dmg (macOS installer)	macOS
npm run dist:win	.exe (NSIS installer)	Windows
npm run dist:linux	.AppImage + .deb	Linux

GitHub Actions (automated releases)

Pushing a version tag triggers the CI workflow which builds all three platforms in parallel and attaches the artifacts to a GitHub Release automatically.

git tag v0.1.0 && git push origin v0.1.0

The workflow (.github/workflows/release.yml) runs three jobs in parallel:

Job	Runner	Output
build-mac	macos-latest	.dmg
build-win	windows-latest	.exe
build-linux	ubuntu-latest	.AppImage + .deb

Once all three complete, a release job creates a GitHub Release at the pushed tag with all artifacts attached and auto-generated release notes.

You can also trigger a build without creating a release via Actions → Build & Release → Run workflow on GitHub.

Docker builds (Linux and Windows only)

Requires Docker with the Compose plugin. Artifacts are written to ./builds on the host.

macOS .dmg builds cannot be produced inside Docker due to Apple licensing restrictions.

# Linux — AppImage + .deb
docker compose run --rm linux

# Windows — NSIS .exe (cross-compiled via Wine)
docker compose run --rm windows

# Both
docker compose run --rm linux && docker compose run --rm windows

GitHub token scopes

Create a classic or fine-grained personal access token that can read pull requests and issue metadata. For a classic PAT these scopes are sufficient:

• repo
• read:user

Paste the token into the widget's settings panel on first launch; it is stored locally via electron-store under your user's app-support directory and is never transmitted anywhere except to api.github.com.

Keyboard & mouse

Action	How
Toggle widget visibility	⌥⌘G (macOS) / Ctrl+Alt+G (Win/Linux), tray click, or :q button
Open settings	header settings button, or tray menu
Refresh now	header refresh button, or tray menu
Open a PR	click the PR card

Architecture

• Main process (src/main/) — Electron lifecycle, window management, tray, GitHub polling, notifications, persistence.
• Preload (src/preload/) — contextIsolation-safe bridge that exposes a typed IPC surface (window.widgetApi).
• Renderer (src/renderer/) — React + Vite; the UI the user sees inside the panel.
• Shared types (src/shared/) — type definitions shared by main and renderer.

Built with:

• Electron 41, electron-vite, electron-builder
• React 19
• @octokit/rest for the GitHub API
• electron-store for persistence

Notes & limits

• Code signing / notarization are not configured. macOS Gatekeeper and Windows SmartScreen warnings are expected for these unsigned builds. Signing requires an Apple Developer Program membership (macOS) and a code-signing certificate (Windows).
• Windows "desktop" mode is a best-effort fallback. Electron does not expose a stable HWND-to-Progman parenting API, so on Windows the desktop mode degrades to a non-topmost floating window.
• Not a WidgetKit widget. Apple's Notification Center widget gallery requires a native Swift companion. PR Pulse is a standalone Electron app that behaves like one.

License

MIT