Talon is a desktop AI assistant for macOS, positioned as an always-on-top floating client, with backend capabilities provided by the OpenClaw gateway. Its core purpose is to let users interact with AI agents at any time without interrupting their current workflow.
Main capabilities:
- Floating and always on top: A transparent window appears on all macOS Spaces and stays resident via a menu bar icon.
- Animated avatar: Based on Lottie, it provides states such as idle, thinking, speaking, and error.
- Full chat history: An expandable chat window supporting Markdown, KaTeX math formulas, and syntax highlighting.
- Multi-agent sessions: Create task-specific sessions (for example, "Stock Research" and "Gmail Monitor") and switch between them.
- Automatic switching: Polls every 10 seconds and automatically jumps to the session that just replied.
- Desktop notifications: Sends notifications when background sessions receive new messages.
- Tool call visibility: Displays each tool call and its result inline in the chat history.
- Privacy first: All data is stored locally via Tauri Store, and a self-hosted OpenClaw gateway is required.
How to use: Talon is a frontend client for the OpenClaw AI gateway, and OpenClaw must first be running locally (or on a reachable remote machine) before it can connect.
- Install OpenClaw: This can be done via the official installation command, or visit openclaw.ai for other installation methods.
- Start the OpenClaw gateway: By default, it starts a WebSocket server at ws://localhost:18789.
- Download (recommended): Download the latest .dmg from the Releases page, open it, and drag Talon into the Applications folder.
- Build from source: Requires the Rust toolchain, Node.js >= 18, and pnpm.
- First-time setup: Open Talon settings (the gear icon on the main panel or right-click the menu bar icon -> Settings), go to the Connection tab, fill in the Gateway URL (default ws://localhost:18789; if OpenClaw is on another machine, use its hostname/IP) and Gateway Token (from OpenClaw's shared secret or device token), and click Save Changes. Then, on the machine where OpenClaw is deployed, run openclaw devices approve to approve the device. After restarting Talon, it will connect automatically.
Use cases: Suitable for macOS users who need quick access to multiple AI sessions in a desktop environment, background monitoring tasks (such as email or stocks), and receiving notifications. It is also suitable for privacy-sensitive users who want localized data and to self-host the AI gateway.
Limitations and notes:
- Only supports macOS.
- Must be used with a self-run or reachable OpenClaw gateway; Talon itself does not provide AI model capabilities.
- Because it is not yet signed with an Apple developer certificate, macOS Gatekeeper may prompt "Talon is damaged and can't be opened" after download. The official documentation provides two fixes: Option 1 (recommended) is to remove the quarantine attribute in Terminal and then launch normally; Option 2 is to click "Open Anyway" in System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Security section and confirm. In macOS Sequoia (15+), the "Open Anyway" button may not appear, so Option 1 is recommended.
- Information about specific pricing, support for platform expansion, model providers, and similar details is not currently provided in the materials.