COS Control, from first run to fixes.

The setup guide

The setup guide stays available after first run. Open it from the Dock menu (Setup guide…), the app menu or Help menu, the pet's right-click menu, Setup guide in the Activity header, or the Setup guide row in the menu bar panel. It remembers where you stopped and shows Finish setup · N of M with the next step and Continue setup. Every row has Skip for now or Set up now.

• Your devices and Your AI: the same choices as first run.
• On this Mac: Ollama, Voice (local transcription) and Dictation engine.
• Settings for your AI: Show your AI sessions, Continue agent threads, Jev (TypeSafe) and Permissions.
• Glasses: pairing, as above.

Voice

Set up and test voice downloads a verified, signed Whisper runtime and its models without Homebrew, benchmarks this Mac and keeps an existing Balanced or Max choice. Allow several GB for models. If a download is missing you see Models not downloaded with a Download button, and Needs more disk space when the disk is too full. The Voice row turns green only after a real dictation works. Until then it reads Checking dictation…, Not tested yet with Test dictation, or Dictation needs attention with Test again.

Dictation engine

This step comes after Voice. Pick Automatic, Parakeet Ultra or Whisper, install Parakeet if you want it, and choose Test on this Mac. The test dictates a 30-second sample with each installed engine and shows how long it took and how many words it got wrong. It is a quick check of this Mac, not a full accuracy test. Picking Automatic while Parakeet is missing installs it in the background, and dictation uses Whisper until it is ready. Parakeet Ultra is recommended on Apple silicon unless the Mac has less than 8 GB of memory or the test says otherwise.

What you need

• Apple silicon and macOS 14 or later. Mac meeting recording needs macOS 14.2 or later.
• Internet access for setup, and one supported AI provider installed.
• Space for voice models: several GB. Parakeet Ultra is a 654 MB download and needs 1.5 GB free.
• Server 6.74.0 for Whisper dictation, the Parakeet install and the engine test. COS Control installs and updates the server for you.

Already running COS in Terminal?

Stop the foreground server with Control-C before installing the managed service. COS Control refuses to take over a process it does not own, so your jobs and recordings stay safe. When it finds a server it recognizes, the panel offers Adopt Safely: Manage in place keeps your server, and Install managed server replaces it. When it cannot identify the process on the COS ports, it says Ownership conflict detected and will not stop or replace it. You can always go back to the plain npx command later.

The menu bar icon

The icon is a pair of glasses while the server runs and crossed-out glasses while it does not. It turns gold with a dot when a COS Control update is ready, and shows a red dot while a meeting records.

The panel

Click the icon to open the panel. From the top:

• Update available, only when an update is ready. See Updating.
• The header: Control with its version, and a refresh button that refreshes status and checks for updates. The line under it reads Checking for updates…, Up to date or Couldn't check for updates.
• While anything records: a recording card with View live transcript.
• Finish setup, until the setup guide is done.
• Activity with Open, and a chip for each view. A number means it needs you; a dot means something is new since you last looked.
• Your move: Work items waiting on you.
• The status card and server controls: Restart, Stop, Start, Update Server or Install Server. See The managed server.
• Setup guide, Permissions, and a Dictation row while dictation is on and Parakeet is not installed.
• The rest of Settings, then a footer with the Control and server versions and Quit.

The panel and Settings in Activity show the same controls and the same saved preferences.

The Dock and the app menus

• Click the Dock icon to open Activity. Before COS is set up it opens the welcome window, and while a meeting records it opens the live transcript.
• Right-click it for Open Activity, Setup guide… and Settings…, plus View live transcript while a meeting records. The Dock icon carries a REC badge while recording.
• The app's Meetings menu has Record on Mac…, Stop Mac recording and save and View live transcript (⌘⇧L). The Dictation menu has Stop dictation, Cancel dictation, Dictionary…, History… and Microphone and shortcuts…. Help has Setup guide… and COS Control help.
• Prefer no Dock icon? Turn on Show in menu bar only in Settings. The app menus, including the live transcript shortcut, are then not available.
• Open Activity with in Settings sets a keyboard shortcut that opens Activity from anywhere.

The session pet

The pet is a small character by your windows that shows the agent sessions on this Mac. The line under it reads, for example, 2 WAITING · 1 RUNNING · 3 DONE, or IDLE. Hover it to see its pills. Each pill shows only when it has something:

• The list groups sessions under RUNNING, WAITING ON YOU and IDLE. Each row has Open in platform, a button that opens the session view in COS Control, a paperplane to message the session, and × to drop it from the list.
• Message a session: the paperplane opens a card that names the session. Type and press Return to send it into the real thread; Option-Return starts a new line and Escape closes. A busy session queues the message, and the card lists what is queued with Edit and ×.
• The figure: click it to open the focused session in its app, double-click it for the session list, right-click it for Full motion, Calm motion, No motion, Hide pet, Settings… and Setup guide….
• Open in platform opens the session in Claude, Codex or Cursor. A session still on its first reply opens in COS Control until that reply is done. Jumping to a window needs Accessibility.

Characters and pet settings

Cloud Puff is the default. Under Settings, Session pet you can choose one of four animated Jedi (Jedi Miles Windu, Jedi Nia Solari, Jedi Elara Vale, Jedi Rowan Vale), a community pet from openpets.dev, or your own art with Install sprite pack or Choose sprite. Use Cloud Puff goes back. The custom pet pack format is on the overview page.

• Session pet switches the pet on or off. It is on by default.
• Pet size (Small, Medium, Large or Custom), Character size (default 300%), Character speed (default 100%, which matches the pack) and Motion (Full, Calm or None). macOS Reduce Motion freezes animated strips.
• Jump to session needs Accessibility, with Grant and Reset and add again.
• Dictation start and stop sounds follow the pet unless you choose others. See Sounds.

Turn it on and pick a shortcut

In Settings, switch on Dictate into Mac apps. It is off by default. Then choose a Microphone (System default or a specific input; Refresh microphones finds a new one) and set a shortcut. Choose Allow insertion into other apps… so COS can type for you.

• Choose Change, then press the shortcut. It can be a modifier plus a key (with Command, Control or Option), a function key F1 to F20, or one modifier key by itself, such as Fn or Right ⌘. Fn and single-key shortcuts need Accessibility.
• Using Fn? In System Settings, Keyboard, set Press 🌐 key to Do Nothing, and move any other dictation app off Fn.
• While you hold Push to talk you can click and drag freely: the text lands where the cursor ends up. A click right after you press the key counts as a modifier-click and does not start dictation.
• A dictation stops by itself after two minutes.
• Pressing another key combination while talking, or the Mac sleeping, cuts a dictation short. A second or more of audio is still transcribed and copied, never typed, unless you copied something else meanwhile.

Engines: Automatic, Parakeet Ultra and Whisper

Choose the engine in Settings, Transcription, Dictation engine. Automatic (recommended) uses Parakeet Ultra when it is installed and ready, and Whisper on this Mac otherwise. A line under the picker says what dictation uses right now. The picker needs server 6.74.0; an older server dictates with Parakeet Ultra only and says to update.

Install Parakeet (654 MB) appears in Settings, Transcription, in a Dictation row of the menu bar panel, on a dictation card and in the setup guide. COS Control includes the speech tool Parakeet needs, so there is no Terminal step. Progress and Cancel show while it downloads, every file is checked before it is installed, and dictation keeps using Whisper meanwhile. Cancel keeps nothing partial. Parakeet needs 1.5 GB free, and installs after any recording ends.

Where the text goes

While you talk, the pet's line becomes a listening pill with a level meter and a timer; with the pet hidden it floats near the bottom of the screen. When you stop, COS types into the text box you are focused on, then checks that the box really changed. If it did not, COS pastes once with ⌘V. COS never presses Return or Send.

• ✓ INSERTED means COS saw the text land. PASTED · ⌘V SENT means it pasted but could not confirm.
• Terminals (Terminal, iTerm2, Warp, Ghostty, kitty, Alacritty and WezTerm) always get a paste, with line breaks turned into spaces.
• Claude, Slack and other Electron or Chromium apps are asked to expose their text boxes first; if COS still finds none, it pastes.
• Restore my clipboard after pasting is on by default: after a paste COS puts back what you had copied.
• Format spoken lists is on by default. Say “number one, number two” or “bullet, next bullet” and COS writes a numbered or bulleted list, one item per line. Ordinary sentences with numbers stay as they are.

When COS cannot type, a card on the pet keeps the text on the clipboard and says why:

A card folds away after 20 seconds, and hovering pauses it. The text stays in Recent dictations.

When a dictation cannot be transcribed

The card reads NOTHING INSERTED with the reason and the one action that fixes it:

• Install Parakeet (654 MB) when Parakeet is not installed. It installs in the background and keeps your audio.
• Use Whisper when Parakeet cannot run but Whisper can. COS switches the engine and retries the same audio.
• Retry, only while the audio is held and a retry can work, for example while an engine is warming up.
• Open Transcription settings when no engine is set up or a retry cannot succeed.
• Open Settings when the microphone is not allowed. It opens the macOS Microphone list.
• No speech detected has no button: check your selected microphone and try again.

Fix a word

After each dictation the pill shows FIX for 5 seconds. Fix a word is also on the cards, in the pet's dictation list, in history and on ⌃⌥F. Tap the word COS got wrong (tap another to widen to a phrase), type the spelling under Always write it as, then Save to dictionary. Heard shows your spelling at once, and COS writes it that way from the next sentence.

Replace it in the app puts the corrected words back, including in Claude, Slack and other Electron apps, by pasting over exactly the text COS typed. When COS cannot prove that text is still there, or in a terminal, it copies the fix and tells you what to do. Saving corrections from here needs server 6.73.12.

The dictionary and Learn from my edits

COS keeps one dictionary for glasses meetings, Mac recordings and dictation. A word you add or fix applies from the next sentence. Open it from Activity, Meetings, Dictionary, or from the Dictation tab. It lists Recent corrections with Undo, your Vocabulary and every Correction.

Learn from my edits (Settings) has three choices:

• Save automatically (the default): when you fix a word COS just typed, in that same field, COS learns it. It watches until you leave the field, three minutes at most. Undo is in Recent corrections.
• Suggest only: suggestions wait a week in Activity, Dictation, for you to add in a batch.
• Off.

It works in native apps for now; Claude, Slack and other Electron apps are measured first. It never runs in terminals or password fields.

While dictating: mute other apps

While dictating has Mute other apps (the default), Lower other audio and Off. Muting needs Screen & System Audio Recording for COS Control; until it is allowed, COS lowers your Mac's volume while you dictate and puts it back after. Since 0.5.318, Allow System Audio Recording… in Settings asks macOS, and if macOS was already answered the COS bar opens the page to drag COS Control in. Music and video are muted, not paused, and nothing is muted during a Mac recording.

Sounds

Under Sound, set the Start and Stop sounds separately, each with Preview.

• Pet's sound is the default and follows your pet: Miles Windu lightsaber for every Jedi (since 0.5.318; in 0.5.317 it was named Miles Windu saber and only the Jedi Miles Windu pet used it), Droid chirp for droids and Soft chime for everyone else. A sound you picked yourself stays as it is.
• Any pet can use any library sound: Miles Windu lightsaber, Unstable saber, Unstable saber (bright), Dark saber, Saber, full ignition, Saber ignite, Saber, soft, Droid chirp or Soft chime.
• Your own file… imports a sound up to 20 MB and trims it to 3 seconds. For the stop sound you can use the end of the file.
• Volume defaults to 60%; at 0 sounds are off. Pitch goes from minus 12 to plus 6 semitones.
• No sound plays while a COS recording is capturing.

History

The DICTATIONS pill on the pet shows your latest 10, each with Copy, and links to All dictations. The full history is in the Dictation tab. Keep dictations for sets how long it lasts: 7 days, 30 days (the default), 90 days, Forever or Don't keep. COS keeps at most 5,000, and Clear dictation history asks before deleting.

Layout

• The header has Add task, Review a meeting and refresh.
• Tabs: Your move (what needs your review, the default), Board, History and More, which holds Focus view, Intake and Waiting on. COS remembers your choice.
• Filter with Search work (⌘F), Domain and Scope: All work, Needs attention, In progress or Completed.
• Your move rows offer the next step, such as Check delivery, Answer question, Review result or Open session, and Hide notice. Hiding a notice leaves its task stage unchanged.

The board

Stages, in order: Mentioned (captured for consideration, a list above the board), Planned, Draft, Built, QA and Complete. Stages reflect your decisions.

• Drag a card between columns to change its stage. Dropping it on Complete asks once; drag it out of Complete to reopen it. Complete shows the latest completions first.
• Order sorts by Board order, Recent activity, Newest or Oldest.
• A card shows its title, status, source meeting, a stage menu, Start work and its files. Right-click for Start work…, Copy task ID, Copy context and Move to.
• When a session reports done, its card can move by itself, with a line such as Moved here at 9:52: the session reported done. and Undo. Cards move up to QA, never to Complete.

A card, its finish line and its sessions

• Edit task sets the name and Done when: what finished looks like.
• Start work asks where the work goes before anything is sent: a new session, an existing one, or a fork. When COS is sure, it counts down a few seconds with Change where it goes, Cancel and Start now. Nothing is published, and the card stays in its column.
• Sessions lists the sessions on the card. A card with many says Loading N sessions… first. Each has View progress, Open, Copy session ID and Unlink, which keeps the session and its history.
• Link existing session finds a session by title, provider or ID. Choose Link as reference to use what a session did, even one working on another task. References sit in their own group with Open and Unlink. COS uses their summary, outputs and changes as context, never sends to them from this task, and they never change its stage. Linking sends no prompt.
• When a handoff needs your review, Mark reviewed clears it (Acknowledge for a failed or refused one).

Work chat

Work chat sits under the card. Describe the outcome; COS explains its plan and drafts an assignment for each linked session, each carrying only its own context. Drop or paste images, video and files; attachments stay with the task.

• Plan with picks Sonnet or Opus (Opus by default) and Effort Low, Medium or High (High by default), when the server offers them.
• Plan (⌘Return) stops at Ready to send. Each assignment has Send, Edit and Skip; the round has Send all and Not now, which keeps them as drafts. Nothing is sent until you press Send, and every send re-checks the task first.
• Plan and send plans and sends through the same checks. The first time, it asks whether to send plans without review; Send plans without review in Settings, Work is off by default.
• A round reads Dispatched only when an assignment reached its session; otherwise it says why, such as Not delivered or Delivery uncertain. If the task changed since planning, it reads Needs a new plan.
• Each round shows how much context it sends, and each linked session how full its context is. Show, preview or trim lets you remove or add items before sending.

When earlier work is still open

A send that earlier work would hold now queues. The card says Queued behind the session it waits for, with Cancel and Send in parallel, and it sends by itself once that work is done, reviewed or answered, after the same checks. Queued work sends while COS Control is open and waits while it is closed. In Settings, Work, When earlier work is still open is Queue it (the default) or Ask each time, which offers Queue it, Send in parallel or Check first. This needs server 6.73.15; an older server checks first, under Earlier handoffs need a check first.

Intake and Waiting on

Intake shows what your meetings produced that is not on the board yet: suggested meeting links, your items to review, and other people's asks. Keep or Drop each one, or Decide later. Each item under Waiting on has Done, Still waiting and Drop, and dropped cards can be restored. Both need a server that offers them.

Work settings

• Work notifications (on) tells you when a session needs you.
• Open new sessions in the app (on): a new session starts on this Mac and opens in its own app once its first reply is done.
• Decision models with a Jev key lets Work suggest whether to continue, fork or start a session. It only suggests.

Tier, preview and replay (under Tools)

• Transcription: Balanced or Max, then Apply. Balanced is recommended: Small.en for live text, Large-v3-Turbo to commit, Large-v3 to polish. Max keeps Large-v3 resident and may use much more memory. The status card names the model behind each stage.
• Meeting Turbo preview shows fast provisional meeting text, then replaces it with the speaker-attributed transcript. Turn it off for an immediate rollback.
• Adaptive audio cleanup is off by default. It cleans retained audio only when you press Play; the raw recording is never changed.
• Idle Metal HQ is for powerful Macs: it uses Metal for post-meeting HQ while the Mac is idle.
• Repair Whisper restarts local Whisper.

Meeting assistant

The Model used only when you ask during a meeting. Sonnet is the default for fresh settings; other chats keep their own models. Refresh connected models rereads what your AI offers. Home city is used only when a fact check needs a starting point: city and state, no street address. Leave it blank to use your phone's area.

Updating COS Control

1. COS Control checks for updates at launch and every six hours. The refresh button in the panel checks now.
2. When one is ready the menu bar glasses turn gold and the panel shows Update available. Choose Update.
3. What's New in COS Control opens with a summary and what changed. Choose Download and install, or Cancel. Return never installs.
4. COS downloads, checks the file's SHA-256 and the app's signature, then quits and reopens by itself. The glasses server keeps running. After an update, What's New opens once on its own.

An update waits until a meeting and any video upload finish. If it cannot be installed, nothing changes and the banner says why, with Try again. The previous copy is kept outside Applications, at ~/Library/Application Support/COS Control/updates/previous/, so macOS does not register it as your login app. There is no restore button for it in the app.

Updating by hand: quit the old Control, replace /Applications/COS Control.app, then open that installed copy. Updating Control does not restart the server.

Updating the server

Update Server downloads the new release and verifies it, stages it as a new generation and switches to it. It then waits for health and a real query on at least one installed AI provider. If that proof fails, it restores the previous generation and tells you. Rollback Server, under Settings, Advanced, goes back to a retained earlier generation (up to two are kept) and verifies it.