Image: GitHub
Why it mattersA developer who writes web code can now make a Mac app with the same coding agent. The template tells the agent what good looks like at each step.
A web developer who wants to make a Mac app has to learn a new language first. They also have to learn a new IDE and a new design system. BAMA lets a coding agent do that learning for them. Dave Ebbelaar released it on 24 October as a set of agent skills. The repository is MIT-licensed. It reached 792 stars in six days.
BAMA runs as a plugin for Claude Code and Codex. It also runs as a standalone bundle in Cursor, Gemini CLI and other agents that read the open skills format. Ebbelaar says BAMA has 21 agent skills in five stages: start, plan, code, design and send. The start stage opens a brief and a project template. The plan stage runs research in parallel. It also lets the agent clone an existing app from screenshots. The code stage covers Swift and SwiftUI. It also covers menu bar and hotkey work, plus performance. The design stage handles layout grids, design systems and app icons. It also covers Apple's Liquid Glass style. The send stage adds build checks with snapshots, a test runner and an improvement loop.
What the agent produces
The output is a working macOS 26 app. It uses Swift 6.2 with SwiftUI, SwiftData for stored data, and a test suite. Ebbelaar notes one limit. Cloning an existing app from a screenshot needs the computer-use feature from a Claude Pro or Max plan. The agent reads the live app to copy its layout. The other skills run with the model the host agent already uses.
The install is one line. Standalone users run npx skills@latest add. Users of Claude Code or Codex run the host agent's plugin command. A router skill then picks which other skill to call for each step.
Why the traction is real
792 stars in six days is about 132 a day. The repository has 118 forks and no open issues on 30 October, so the fork rate looks healthy. Ebbelaar is a working developer who writes about agent skills on YouTube. People try his skills because the audience was already there. The MIT licence means a company can read the skills, change them, and use the result without a licence call.
A Mac app agent skill fills a real gap. Web and server work has had good agent support for two years. Mobile and desktop fell behind. The tools around the code (Xcode's own window, the Mac design rules, the release steps) do not fit a chat. BAMA states what the agent should do at each of those steps. That is the part a general coding agent cannot guess from a short prompt.
Source
This item was written by an AI system from the linked source. Reveneau is responsible for what it publishes.
Get AI News in your inbox
New developer tools, model and agent releases, and how teams are actually using them to release software. Short, and only when there is something worth reading.
