Plonk

A Spotlight-style floating Python REPL for macOS. Hit a hotkey, get a Python prompt anywhere.

What it does

Plonk lives in your menu bar and pops up a floating REPL panel on a global hotkey. Behind the scenes it runs a long-lived Python interpreter subprocess, so state (variables, imports) persists between commands until you reset it.

Usage

• Toggle the panel: Ctrl + Option + Space
• Dismiss: Esc, or click anywhere outside the panel
• Run code: type a Python expression or statement and hit return
• History: Up / Down arrows scroll through previous commands

Meta-commands

Command	What it does
%clear	Clear the visible history
%reset	Restart the Python interpreter (also re-runs the bootstrap script)
%copy	Copy the previous output to the clipboard
%copy <expr>	Evaluate <expr> and copy the value (uses print(), so you get the value not the repr). Silent on success; errors appear in history.
!<cmd>	Run <cmd> in your shell. For uv commands, runs in the detected project directory.

Clipboard shortcut

Cmd + C inside the panel:

• With text selected → standard copy
• With nothing selected → equivalent to %copy (grabs the last output)

Settings

Open from the menu bar icon → Settings.

• Python Interpreter: path to the python3 binary you want to use. Plonk auto-detects a parent virtualenv (looks upward for a pyvenv.cfg) and sets VIRTUAL_ENV / PATH accordingly.
• Bootstrap Script: Python code that runs on interpreter startup. Useful for default imports.
• Restart Interpreter: kill and relaunch the subprocess with the current settings.

The keyboard shortcut is currently hard-coded to Ctrl + Option + Space.

How it works

• MenuBarExtra for the menu bar entry
• Carbon hot key API for the global shortcut (HotKeyManager)
• NSPanel with .nonactivatingPanel for the Spotlight-style floating window (FloatingPanel)
• A persistent Python subprocess driven over stdin/stdout/stderr with a marker-based protocol (PythonManager)
• The user's login-shell PATH is inherited so tools installed via Homebrew, uv, pyenv, etc. resolve correctly

The app sandbox is disabled — required for the global hotkey and for spawning arbitrary Python interpreters.

Building

Open Plonk.xcodeproj in Xcode and build. Requires macOS 14+ (uses @Observable, MenuBarExtra, etc.).

Releasing

release.sh runs archive → sign → notarize → staple → DMG in one shot. Output lands in build/Plonk.dmg.

One-time setup:

# Install create-dmg
brew install create-dmg

# Store notary credentials in the keychain (uses an app-specific password
# from appleid.apple.com → Sign-In and Security → App-Specific Passwords)
xcrun notarytool store-credentials "plonk-notary" \
  --apple-id <your-apple-id> \
  --team-id V2CW6Y3N5J \
  --password <app-specific-password>

Then:

./release.sh

Signing identity comes from your Developer ID Application certificate in the keychain (Xcode → Settings → Accounts → Manage Certificates).

Credits

Logo: see CREDITS.md.