Kairos for Mac
Settings
Every switch in Kairos's Settings on the Mac, iPhone and iPad, what each one does, and what it changes on your Mac.
On the Mac, Settings is its own window (Kairos › Settings…, or ⌘,) with seven tabs. Each tab is as tall as its content. On an iPhone and iPad, Settings is a tab with one list. A setting kept by the engine is the same everywhere: change it on the phone and the Mac shows it.
General
Source
- Read from: which Kairos the app shows. On a Mac this is This Mac; a demo source exists only in builds made for screenshots and tests.
- Port: the engine's local port, 47615 unless you changed it. Change… shows a field; a port from 1024 to 65535 is kept when you press Return or leave the field.
- Status: Connected, or what went wrong.
Appearance
Light, Dark or System. "Light is marble, Dark is night, System follows the device."
This Mac
| Item | What it does |
|---|---|
| Set Up… | Shows the setup steps again. |
| Use Kairos's accounts in Terminal | Adds or removes one line in your zsh or bash startup file. "With it, claude in a new Terminal window starts on the account Kairos picks. Off takes the line out again." In another shell Kairos says to start sessions with claude-rotation claude. |
| Kairos on this Mac › Remove Kairos… | Removes Kairos's background items, shell line and files, and keeps your accounts, logs and history. See Install › Take it off. |
About
The app's version, the version of Kairos running on this Mac (with a button to update it when it is older than the app), and the wordmark's font.
Accounts
| Section | Switch | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 5-hour windows | Start each window early | "When an account's 5-hour window resets, Kairos sends it one tiny request so the next starts at once." The footer says when it last did. See Priming. |
| claude.ai pages | Open pages as their account | Claude Code opens the pages it publishes in that account's own Chrome, so a page made under another account than your browser's still opens. See Pages. |
| claude.ai pages | Links you click too | "A claude.ai page opens in its account's Chrome; any other link opens in your browser. macOS asks you to confirm." |
| Chrome and pages | Check before a session uses Chrome or a page | Before a session's Claude in Chrome call, Kairos opens that account's Chrome, so the call finds it. Before a call to a page made on another account, Kairos brings that account back first, or tells the session why it cannot yet. See Chrome. |
| API costs | Admin keys | "A Console organization's Admin key shows what its API use costs. Kept in the Mac's Keychain." See API keys. |
A switch your organization's Claude Code policy sets shows "Set by your organization" and cannot be changed here.
Sessions
| Section | Switch | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Messages | Deliver without approval (one per tool) | Kairos's messages to your sessions — the pause before a limit, the resume after, a question about unusual use, and what you type in a session's send box — reach the session without you approving each. On unless you turn it off. "Mixed" means some of the tool's sessions have it and some do not. |
| Unusual use | Ask sessions about unusual use | "Kairos asks a session using far more than usual to clean up, and shows its reply." See Unusual use. |
| Insights | Deeper insights | "Uses a little spare Claude usage. Sends numbers, names and times from this Mac to Anthropic with your account, never your code or conversations." See what's sent shows exactly what was sent last time, or "Nothing has been sent." Off until you turn it on. See Deeper insights. |
Alerts
| Switch | What it does |
|---|---|
| Open at login | Kairos opens when you log in, so it can alert you. |
| Show in menu bar | The menu bar glance. |
| Capacity about to go unused | Alert when the plan leaves an account's week unspent at its reset. |
| Accounts running out | Alert when the forecast runs out of accounts at this week's pace. |
| Monday recap | Last week's laurel and one thing to try, Monday to Wednesday. |
| Claude in Chrome | Alert when Chrome's account is out of room or Chrome stopped connecting. |
| Night Shift's brief | Alert when the Night Shift has finished. |
| Use up by | Alert before an account's use-up-by time. |
| Sessions and tasks | Sessions that need you, the pause guard, work put off for later. |
| Unusual use | A session using far more than usual, or the Mac short of disk or memory. |
"At most 3 a day, none from 22:00 to 08:00. Kairos stays in the menu bar to send them." If macOS has notifications off for Kairos, the tab says so in terracotta. See Moments and notifications.
iPhone & iPad
"A paired iPhone or iPad reads this Mac directly on your Wi-Fi; away from home, through a relay that cannot read it."
- Pair iPhone or iPad… shows a QR code for five minutes, for one device. See Pairing.
- Each paired device is listed with Remove, which stops its access at once and deletes its relay room.
GitHub
The GitHub Actions daily limits. See GitHub Actions limits for what they do.
| Item | What it does |
|---|---|
| Connect GitHub | "Kairos reads each repository's Actions spend with your GitHub CLI sign-in." If the GitHub CLI is missing, Install and Connect (Homebrew installs it) or Get the GitHub CLI. While connecting: "Enter the code at github.com/login/device", with Copy Code and Open GitHub and Cancel. Kairos never sees the token. |
| Allow | Once signed in, lets the GitHub CLI read your own account's usage too. |
| Daily limit for each repository | Turns the limits on. "At a repository's daily limit Kairos cancels its pull request and branch runs. Merges, releases and manual runs keep going." |
| Each repository | The default, in dollars a day ($10 unless you change it). |
| A repository's own limit | Its own dollars a day, or Default to go back. |
| After its limit | "Runs a day after the limit: one commit's checks, or a manual run." |
The footer: "Limits lift at 00:00 UTC. Spend is GitHub's usage report at list price, about an hour behind."
Updates
Update Kairos automatically, the state of the last check and Check Now. See Updates.
On iPhone and iPad
Settings is one list, in this order:
- Mac: the paired Mac and Unpair, or Pair with a Mac…. "Kairos reads the Mac directly on your Wi-Fi; away from home, through a relay that cannot read it." Until a Mac is paired: "Until a Mac is paired, Kairos Code shows how it works and how to pair."
- Source, only when there is more than one to read from.
- Appearance.
- Messages, Unusual use, 5-hour windows and Deeper insights, as on the Mac. They change the Mac's settings.
- API costs: the Mac's Admin keys.
- About: How Kairos Code Works (the tour again), the app's version and the Mac's.
If the Mac does not answer when you unpair: "… did not answer: remove this device in its Settings too."