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The Caduceus mark: a pixel-art winged staff with two coiled snakes

Caduceus

A fast, local-first command centre for your Mac.

macOS 11+ Apple Silicon & Intel MIT licensed ~5 MB

Install

Pick one path — Caduceus only, the full local stack (app + Ollama + Hermes Agent + models), or the .dmg.

Option 1 — Caduceus only

Best for getting started fast — palette, launcher, clipboard, dictation, and web search in about ten seconds. Add AI whenever you are ready.

$ curl -fsSL https://vivaanshahani.com/caduceus/install.sh | bash

~5 MB download · ~10 s on a fast connection · Idempotent — safe to run again; skips the app if it is already installed.

Option 2 — Full local stack

Best for using / and /c with local models and zero follow-up wiring — Ollama, Hermes, and Caduceus settings are configured for you.

One idempotent command: Caduceus, Ollama, Hermes Agent, model pulls, / on http://localhost:11434/v1, and /c via Hermes computer_use. Untick what you already have; model pulls require Ollama (see Ollama docs and Hermes Agent on GitHub if you prefer to install by hand). Do not worry if you picked option 1 first — you can run this same command later; it skips what is already installed and only fills in AI pieces.

    $

    Option 3 — Download the .dmg

    Best for downloading the app file yourself — corporate policies, offline transfer, or if you prefer not to pipe a script into bash.

    Get the latest .dmg, drag Caduceus to Applications, then run this once. Caduceus is not signed with an Apple Developer certificate yet, so macOS quarantines it until you trust it. 

    xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Caduceus.app

    Type anything

    One bar. Control + Space from anywhere.

    figma Launches Figma. Every app on your Mac is searchable.
    1920/16*9 Shows 1,080. Enter copies it.
    18% of 240 Shows 43.2.
    flights to lisbon Searches the web, in whichever engine you set.
    / explain OAuth Asks your AI agent.
    /c find the invoice in my email Hands the task to an agent that can drive your Mac.
    /v invoice Searches everything you have copied.

    What you get

    All of it works offline, with no account and no API key.

    ⚕ A floating staff

    Sits above everything. Hover for six shortcuts, click for the palette, drag it wherever. Click-through the rest of the time, so it never steals a click.

    ▣ App launcher

    Fuzzy-search every application you have installed and open it with Enter. No configuration.

    = Calculator

    Real arithmetic in the search bar — precedence, percentages, functions, constants. Enter copies the answer.

    ❐ Clipboard history

    Text, images and files, searchable and pinnable. Skips whatever your password manager marks as secret. Optional encryption at rest.

    ◍ Push-to-talk

    Hold Alt+Shift+V, talk, let go. Live words appear in the Command Center while you speak, transcribed on-device by Apple's speech engine — no wake word, no cloud.

    📷 Screenshots & screen record

    Capture the display to the clipboard (and Downloads), or open Apple's Screenshot app to record with mic and/or system audio.

    ✳ An agent, if you want one

    Powered by Hermes Agent. It can read your screen and drive your mouse — but only after you approve it, every single time.

    From your phone

    Caduceus runs on your Mac. These paths let you message your machine, run the same Hermes / Ollama stack, or open the full desktop — including at least one completely free setup.

    Free — Tailscale + SSH SSH from Termius or Shortcuts into your Mac; run hermes or scripts. Same AI engine as / and /c. $0 on Tailscale’s personal plan.
    Free — DIY Telegram bot A bot on your Mac forwards chat to Hermes or shell. Text from your phone like an assistant. $0 (Telegram API); you maintain the script.
    Push notification → Mac Pushover (~$5 once) or Pushcut triggers a Mac Shortcut — great for one-tap “do this on my Mac”, not full chat.
    Remote desktop Jump Desktop, Screens, etc. — see and click Caduceus itself. Paid apps; often paired with Tailscale.

    Full comparison, costs, and setup steps →

    The AI is Hermes

    Caduceus does not ship its own model or its own agent loop. It drives Hermes Agent, the open-source agent from Nous Research — which already does model routing, tool calling, memory and screen control properly.

    $ curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash && hermes setup --portal

    ~150 MB · ~2–5 min · Idempotent — re-running skips an existing Hermes install. Use only if you are not using the full bundle above (which configures Hermes for local Ollama automatically).

    Optional. Shortcuts, the launcher, the calculator, clipboard history, voice and web search all work with Hermes uninstalled. Only the / and /c prefixes need it. Hermes runs whatever model you point it at, including a local one.