Verto

A tiny Spotlight-style window for macOS that rewrites, translates or corrects text with a local LLM. Press a hotkey, paste, hit ⏎, copy.

• Rewrite (default): turns clumsy text — typically non-native English — into well-phrased text, in the same language, adding and removing nothing.
• Translate: detects the language (French → English, anything else → French by default), with any other target one keystroke away.
• Adjust, like Copilot's Adjust in Microsoft Teams: more professional, casual, confident, enthusiastic, shorter, longer, or any instruction you type.
• Compare without regenerating: every result is kept as a version; switch between them with ← →.
• Markdown rendering of results (headings, lists, quotes, tables, inline styles) with syntax-highlighted code blocks for ~20 languages.
• History, menu bar app (no Dock icon), keyboard-first, no dependencies.

The interface is currently in French.

Requirements

• macOS 14 or later (developed and tested on Apple Silicon only).
• Swift 5.10+ — the Xcode Command Line Tools are enough: xcode-select --install.
• An OpenAI-compatible LLM server, for example:
  • Ollama: ollama serve, then e.g. ollama pull llama3.1 (default endpoint http://localhost:11434/v1)
  • LM Studio (http://localhost:1234/v1), llama.cpp server…

An 8B model such as llama3.1 works; a larger one (e.g. qwen2.5:14b, mistral-small) gives noticeably better English.

Install

git clone https://github.com/ghigt/verto.git
cd verto
./build.sh && open Verto.app

build.sh compiles with swiftc directly (no SwiftPM needed, no admin rights) and assembles Verto.app. You can move it to /Applications, and add it under System Settings → General → Login Items to start it at login. Alternatively, swift run -c release runs it without building the app bundle.

Pre-built binaries are not provided: the app isn't signed or notarized, so macOS would block a downloaded copy. Building from source avoids that.

Usage

Press ⌥Space, paste or type your text, press ⏎. Then:

Key	Action
⏎	copy the result (also ⌘⏎ / ⌘C); the window stays open
tab	open the adjust palette: type "pro", "court", "esp", "chin"…, pick with ↑↓, apply with ⏎; with no match, ⏎ sends what you typed as a free-form instruction. ✓ = already generated (shown instantly)
⌥1…⌥9	apply an adjustment preset directly
← →	switch between generated versions
⌘1…⌘9	choose the action (Rewrite, Translate, Correct, Free); re-runs on the original text
⌘.	stop generation
⌘N	new conversation
⌘Y	history: search, ↑↓, ⏎ reopen, ⌘⏎ copy, ⌘⌫ delete
⌘, or ⋯	app menu: settings, reload config, show/hide menu bar icon, quit
esc	close (the conversation is kept until ⌘N)

Translate, then pick another language in the adjust palette (tab):

History (⌘Y):

The menu bar icon can be hidden from its menu. To bring it back: ⌘, in the window → Afficher l'icône…, or simply open Verto.app again.

On a French keyboard, ⌥Space types a non-breaking space; change hotkey if you use it.

Configuration

Open the menu (⌘, or the menu bar icon) → Réglages… to edit everything in a window: server, model (with a list fetched from the server), temperature, hotkey, history, and the actions and adjustment presets (add, remove, reorder, edit prompts). Enregistrer (⌘S) saves and applies immediately.

The settings are stored in ~/.config/verto/config.json, created on first launch. You can also edit it by hand (Ouvrir config.json in the settings window), then use Recharger la config in the menu.

Key	Description
baseURL	OpenAI-compatible endpoint (default: Ollama, http://localhost:11434/v1)
model	model name; empty = first model listed by the server
apiKey	sent as a Bearer token if set
temperature	default 0.1 (higher = more varied, less faithful)
hotkey	e.g. option+space, ctrl+option+t, cmd+shift+space
prefillFromClipboard	prefill the input with the clipboard
historyLimit	conversations kept (default 200, 0 = disabled)
actions	list of { "name", "prompt" }; an empty prompt means your text is the prompt ("Libre"). Optional languages (e.g. ["fr", "en"]) enables automatic translation direction, with {target} replaced in the prompt; optional targets lists the languages suggested first in the palette
adjustments	adjustment presets { "name", "prompt" }

The text is sent between <text> tags so the model rewrites a question instead of answering it.

Privacy

• Your text is sent only to the server configured in baseURL. With a local server, nothing leaves your Mac; if you point it to a cloud API, your text goes there.
• The history (~/.config/verto/history.json) and the apiKey (in config.json) are stored in plain text on your Mac. Set historyLimit to 0 to disable history.
• No telemetry, no network access other than the LLM endpoint.

License

MIT