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Install the desktop

Get hm.app onto an Apple-silicon Mac, past the first-open prompt, and running with the copy of hm it carries inside the bundle.

The desktop is a macOS application called hm.app. It is the board you direct work from, and it carries its own copy of the hm command-line program inside the bundle. You do not need to install anything before it, and it leaves any hm you already have alone.

Before you start

  • A Mac with Apple silicon, running macOS 11 or later. There is no build of the app for an Intel Mac, Windows or Linux.
  • Nothing else. The download is open: no hm account, no organisation, no invitation and no token. If the button refuses you, that is a fault to report rather than access to ask for.

Install it

  1. Open the download page and press Download for macOS. That address redirects to the newest stable release, so it is the same link after the next one.
  2. Open the disk image and drag hm.app onto the Applications shortcut beside it.
  3. Eject the disk image.

Copy the app out rather than running it from the mounted image. An app opened in place runs from a temporary read-only copy, so nothing you do to it sticks and it goes away when you eject.

Open it for the first time

The app is not signed or notarized, so macOS refuses the first launch of a copy that came through a browser. The way past it is in System Settings, once per copy.

  1. Double-click hm.app in Applications. macOS shows a dialog that offers no way to open it. Dismiss it.
  2. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security and scroll to Security. The app is named there with an Open Anyway button.
  3. Click Open Anyway, authenticate with Touch ID or your password, and confirm Open Anyway in the dialog that follows.

The window opens, and every launch after that opens directly. Right-click → Open no longer works on current macOS, so use the Settings path.

What you see first

On a machine that has never had hm, the app finds no Works and opens a setup conversation instead of an empty board. Create or join a Works walks through it. You do not need to sign in to use the board; signing in connects your account and organisation.

Upgrade

Download the new release the same way, drag hm.app over the installed copy, and answer the Open Anyway prompt once more. The approval belongs to one copy of the app, so a new copy asks again. The hm inside the app is replaced with it. A command-line hm you installed separately is not, and is upgraded on its own.

Advanced

From the command line

The app always runs the hm inside its own bundle, even if another hm is on your PATH. To see which version that is:

/Applications/hm.app/Contents/MacOS/hm --version

The command-line program also ships on its own, for macOS on Apple silicon and Linux on x86-64. Its install commands need read access to the source repository and are listed on the download page. Once installed, check it with:

hm --version

Checked against docs/runbooks/install.md, reviewed 2026-09-15. That file is what makes these steps true; this page is a reading of it, and is not where it is edited.