ThinkWatch Homebrew tap

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The Homebrew cask for ThinkWatch Lite, a desktop app that runs a local gateway for Claude Code, Codex and other AI clients. It requires macOS 12 or later on Apple silicon; the cask refuses to install on an Intel Mac.

brew install --cask thinkwatchproject/tap/thinkwatch-lite

Installing by the full name taps this repository; no separate brew tap is needed. Windows and Linux builds and the macOS disk image are on the download page.

Unsigned app and the quarantine attribute

The app is signed with the project's self-signed certificate, not an Apple Developer ID, so Gatekeeper does not accept it. The certificate keeps the signer the same across releases, so brew upgrade does not report a changed signer. The cask's postflight step removes the quarantine attribute, which is the only action it takes besides copying the app:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/ThinkWatch Lite.app"

To do this step by hand instead, download ThinkWatch-Lite-<version>-arm64.dmg from the releases page, check it against the published SHA-256 checksum and run the command above. Otherwise, System Settings › Privacy & Security › Open Anyway is required once per installation; since macOS 15, Control-click no longer bypasses the check.

Updates

brew update && brew upgrade --cask thinkwatch-lite

An app installed with Homebrew does not update itself, so that Homebrew's record of the installed version stays correct. The app announces a new version once this cask carries it, and offers the command above to copy. Each release updates the cask when it is published, with an hourly job here as a fallback. brew update is included because brew upgrade refreshes taps at most once a day.

Uninstallation

First use Settings › Full uninstall in the app: it restores every connected client and turns off launch at login. Removing the app alone leaves clients pointed at a port where nothing is listening.

brew uninstall --cask thinkwatch-lite

This keeps ~/.thinkwatch, which holds the configuration with upstream keys, the request history and the keys of remote connections. To move that directory and the app's other files to the Trash as well:

brew uninstall --zap --cask thinkwatch-lite