Developer IronsideXXVI has released a native macOS client for Hacker News, built entirely in SwiftUI and open-sourced under the MIT license. The app replaces the website with a split-view interface, featuring a story sidebar and integrated reader. It includes built-in ad and pop-up blocking, HN account login with Keychain storage, and offline bookmarks, all within a single window.

The technical implementation is lean at approximately 2,050 lines of Swift across 16 files. It uses modern Swift concurrency with async/await and the @Observable macro. Data is sourced from two APIs: the official HN Firebase API for items and the Algolia HN API for feeds, search, and filtering—a choice that enables date ranges and full-text search Firebase lacks.

The release pipeline, powered by GitHub Actions, automates the complex macOS distribution process: Developer ID signing, Apple notarization, signed DMG creation, and Sparkle update generation. The developer notes that configuring code signing and notarization in CI was the project's hardest part. The app requires macOS 14.0+ and is available as a signed, notarized DMG from GitHub Releases, where the project currently has 27 stars.