ShepherdShepherd
Pay what you want
For people who want the finished app.
- Signed and notarized macOS app
- Automatic updates
- Ready in minutes
- Name your price, from $0
- Project
- Shepherd Build Kit
- Dwg. no.
- SBK-001
- Rev.
- 1.0.0
- Herdr protocol
- 22
- Scale
- 1:1
- Sheet
- 1 of 1
Shepherd Build Kit
Build it yourself.
The complete product specification, architecture, Herdr integration knowledge, design decisions, fixtures and agent instructions behind Shepherd.
Drop it into your coding agent and make Shepherd yours.
Fig. 1 — Contents of shepherd-build-kit/
SPEC.mdpublic excerpt
Shepherd: product specification
Shepherd is a native macOS companion for Herdr that lives around the MacBook notch and tells the user when coding agents need human attention.
Herdr manages agents. Shepherd manages attention.
This is the canonical statement of what Shepherd does. It stays at the level of behaviour and decisions. Exact values, wire formats and algorithms live in the documents it points to (the § numbers are listed in AGENTS.md).
1. The four questions
Shepherd exists to answer, at a glance and without opening Herdr:
- Is anything happening? (collapsed notch: agents working)
- Does anything need me? (a count, a banner, an orange signal)
- Which agent needs me, and why? (expanded herd, detail with the agent's actual question)
- How do I get back to it? (one action: the exact Herdr pane in the exact terminal window)
The complete SPEC.md is included in the Build Kit.
Get the Build Kit — $19Click around. Six files have public excerpts; the rest say what they’re for.
A — Contents
Not a prompt. The decisions behind the product.
Product intent
What Shepherd should do, what it should never become, and the UX principles behind it.
Architecture
Native macOS architecture, the Herdr boundary, the attention engine, and the decisions behind them.
Agent context
AGENTS.md, focused skills and prompts tell your coding agent what to read, and when.Verification
Fixtures, behavioural tests and acceptance criteria show whether the app you built actually behaves like Shepherd.
A Shepherd that behaves like Shepherd.
B — Procedure
From ZIP to first commit.
- 01Download the kit
- 02Open it with your coding agent
- 03“Read AGENTS.md and bootstrap Shepherd.”
Read AGENTS.md and bootstrap Shepherd.
I’ll start by reading the product specification and the instructions for the bootstrap milestone, check your Swift toolchain and Herdr, then write a plan: one section per milestone, the tests for each, and anything the kit leaves open.
Use the agent you already use.
Everything lives in plain Markdown, JSON, fixtures and assets. There’s no CLI and no vendor lock-in; skills use standard front matter, and tools without skills just read them.
- Claude Code
- Codex
- Cursor
- Gemini CLI
- GitHub Copilot
- OpenCode
- Any tool that reads AGENTS.md
Names and logos belong to their owners. Shepherd isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by them.
C — Modifications
It’s yours. Change it.
The kit preserves the hard decisions and leaves the implementation open to you. CUSTOMIZATION.md marks the safe seams, and every non-obvious choice has a decision record, so you know what you’re changing.
- Change the visual language
- Change attention priorities
- Add new agent states
- Use the menu bar instead of the notch
- Change terminal behaviour
- Add your own Herdr workflows
- Build something entirely different on the same architecture
D — Specification table
Build it or just use it.
Shepherd Build Kit
$19
For people who want to make it theirs.
- Complete specification
- Architecture and 18 decision records
- Agent instructions
- Skills and prompts
- Fixtures and a reference checker
- Tests and acceptance criteria
- Design tokens and assets
- Release playbook
E — Sign-off
You could build Shepherd yourself.
So here’s everything your agent needs to start.