# Perch

> Perch is a free Mac app (beta) for people who run several Claude Code sessions at once. It keeps every session, PR, and link for a piece of work in one place, stays quiet while you focus, and tells you when something needs you.

Tagline: Do one thing. Perch watches the rest.

## What it does

- Each piece of work is a "context" with its own Claude Code session, next steps, status, PRs, links, and notes.
- The dashboard groups contexts by whose move it is: yours, waiting on a teammate or reviewer, Claude working, or idle.
- Notifications arrive only when a session needs input or approval, a PR gets review comments, or CI fails. Perch stays silent about the context you are looking at.
- Chat view shows the conversation with formatted replies and a message box. Terminal view is the real Claude Code CLI.
- Every next step has an owner (you, Claude, or a teammate), and Claude keeps a one-line status as it works.
- PRs are detected automatically across repos and worktrees, with review state, CI checks, and who you are waiting on (via the GitHub CLI).
- Jira tickets show their status, assignee, and new comments, with a list of tickets assigned to you (via Atlassian's own CLI sign-in; read-only).
- GitLab merge requests, approvals, and review threads appear alongside GitHub PRs (via the GitLab CLI, glab).
- Azure Boards work items show their state and new comments, with a list of work assigned to you (via Microsoft's az CLI sign-in; read-only).
- Chats from the Claude app (web or desktop) can be brought in from a Claude data export; Claude suggests which project each chat belongs to.
- Links to Slack threads, Jira tickets, Confluence pages, Google Docs, Notion, Figma, Linear, and Loom are pinned to a context automatically when they come up in its Claude conversation, notes, or status, with readable titles.
- Feedback, with an optional screenshot of the Perch window, can be sent from inside the app.
- Deep focus mutes every other context so you can stay with one.
- Sessions keep running when you quit or update Perch.
- Existing Claude Code sessions can be imported and resumed where they left off.
- Updates install with one click and keep sessions running.

## Who it is for

Engineers who juggle parallel Claude Code work, and non-engineers (product managers, designers, analysts, writers) who use Claude Code without wanting to live in a terminal. Setup guides you through installing and signing in to Claude Code.

## Install

- Download the DMG from https://perchfocus.com, or with Homebrew: `brew tap eastandwestwind/tap && brew trust eastandwestwind/tap && brew install --cask perch`

## Requirements

- macOS on Apple Silicon
- Claude Code (Perch can install it for you)
- GitHub CLI, optional, for PR states
- GitLab CLI (glab), optional, for merge request states
- Atlassian CLI, optional, for Jira
- Azure CLI (az), optional, for Azure Boards

## Privacy

- Contexts, notes, and status live in a local database on your Mac. No account, and nothing about your work leaves the Mac.
- No analytics or usage tracking. Update checks send only the app version and whether it is the day's or week's first check, so active copies can be counted; no ID or IP address is stored. Crash reports are off unless you turn them on, and never include prompts, terminal output, or code.
- GitHub, GitLab, Jira, and Azure Boards access goes through your own gh, glab, Atlassian, and az CLI logins. Claude Code talks to Anthropic exactly as it does without Perch.
- Perch never reads, stores, or sends API keys or sign-in tokens. They stay in the macOS Keychain or the user's environment variables, wherever Claude Code, the GitHub CLI, and Atlassian's CLI keep them.
- Every release is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, which includes Apple's automated malware scan.

## Links

- Website: https://perchfocus.com/
- Download (latest, notarised DMG): https://github.com/eastandwestwind/perchfocus.com/releases/latest/download/Perch-arm64.dmg
- Release notes: https://github.com/eastandwestwind/perchfocus.com/releases
- Contact: hello@perchfocus.com

## Pricing

Free during the beta.