omarshahine/homeclaw

HomeClaw is a macOS app that connects Apple's HomeKit smart home system to AI assistants and command line tools. Apple HomeKit has no public API and no command line interface, so there was previously no way to control lights, locks, thermostats, and scenes from outside the Apple Home app. HomeClaw closes that gap. The app runs as a small menu bar utility in the background and talks to HomeKit directly on your behalf. It exposes your smart home devices through three surfaces: a command line interface for terminal users, a text based visual interface for power users, and an MCP server, a standardized protocol that lets AI assistants call external tools. Once set up, you can tell Claude Desktop or Claude Code things like turn off all the lights or set the thermostat to seventy two, and HomeClaw translates that into real HomeKit commands. You can also write shell scripts that control your smart home, or build automations that go beyond what the built in Apple Home app supports. Tools exposed to AI assistants include listing and controlling accessories, managing rooms and scenes, viewing recent events, setting up webhooks, and creating automations triggered by button presses. Under the hood, HomeClaw is built as a single Mac Catalyst app, because Apple's HomeKit manager requires a Catalyst or UIKit app with a special entitlement. Building the whole app this way means HomeKit access is direct with no extra communication layer, and the app can be packaged and signed as one unit. The easiest way to install HomeClaw is through the Mac App Store, which needs no developer account. You can also build it from source, but that path requires an Apple Developer account, since Apple restricts HomeKit access to signed apps. That restriction comes from Apple's platform rules, not from HomeClaw itself. The project is released under the MIT license. The full README is longer than what was shown.