Swirl

Inspiration

Existing AI workflow tools — ChatGPT, n8n, Zapier — lock your data in the cloud, force you into their ecosystem, and can't touch your actual desktop. We wanted a visual workflow builder that runs locally, talks to your Mac, and isn't beholden to any single AI provider.

What it does

Swirl is a local-first visual workflow builder that turns natural language into executable AI agents on your Mac.

Natural language → workflow: Describe what you want, Swirl generates a visual graph
Desktop control: Automate Apple Notes, Finder, Calendar, Mail via macOS APIs
Custom Python: Drop in your own scripts as workflow steps
iMessage triggers: Text yourself to kick off any workflow
MCP integration: Connect to any Model Context Protocol server for extensible tools

How we built it

Jac (Jaclang) — Workflows are native graph-walker agents, not serialized configs
React + TypeScript — Visual canvas with drag-and-drop blocks
FastAPI — Backend for LLM orchestration and execution
AppleScript — macOS desktop automation bridge
MCP SDK — Dynamic tool discovery and execution

Challenges we ran into

Mapping visual blocks to Jac's unfamiliar graph-walker primitives
macOS permission grants per app for AppleScript automation
Managing MCP server lifecycle (spawn, health, cleanup)
iMessage has no public API — had to reverse-engineer Messages.app

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Jac-native execution — Real walkers traversing real graphs, not a wrapper
iMessage triggers — "Text yourself to trigger anything" is a demo crowd-pleaser
True local-first — Zero cloud dependency, your data stays on your machine
Round-trip codegen — Visual → .jac source → edit in IDE → re-import