glaze-app-dev

Developing Glaze apps from Claude Code (credit-free)

Glaze (by Raycast) builds macOS desktop apps with an AI agent. That built-in agent is what costs Glaze credits. But every Glaze app is an ordinary Claude Code project on disk, you own the code (Glaze states this explicitly). So you can edit, build and run it with your own Claude Code and local tooling and spend zero Glaze credits. Building/compiling is fully local and free.

This skill teaches you to do exactly that safely.

0. Locate Glaze, its apps, and its bundled Node

Run this once per task to set up the environment (works on any Mac):

# Find Glaze's data dir (handles profile-name variants)
GLAZE_BASE="$(for d in "$HOME/Library/Application Support/"app.glaze.macos.*; do [ -d "$d/apps" ] && echo "$d" && break; done)"
echo "BASE=$GLAZE_BASE"
ls "$GLAZE_BASE/apps"                 # each subfolder is one app

# Glaze bundles Node >= 24, REQUIRED for builds (system node is often too old)
NODE_BIN="$(ls -d "$GLAZE_BASE"/node/runtime/*/bin 2>/dev/null | head -1)"
export PATH="$NODE_BIN:$PATH"
node -v                                # should print v24.x
# Match Glaze's npm policy without editing its config:
[ -f "$GLAZE_BASE/.npmrc" ] && export NPM_CONFIG_USERCONFIG="$GLAZE_BASE/.npmrc"

An app lives at "$GLAZE_BASE/apps/<app-folder>/" and contains:

<app-folder>/
├── .glaze-sources/      ← EDIT HERE (the real source)
├── .glaze/              ← build output, NEVER touch
├── .claude/             ← project Claude config (settings.local.json)
└── <ProductName>.app    ← symlink to the installed app in /Applications/Glaze/

1. Read the version-matched guidance first (don't rely only on this skill)

Each Glaze install ships its own always-current guide + skills. Read them before coding:

• "$GLAZE_BASE/agent-resources/current/GLAZE-APP-GUIDE.md", full structure guide (backend/frontend layout, window/tray/notification/global-shortcut recipes, bundling, publishing, and an "SDK API Reference" section that tells you how to look up exact @glaze/core exports and window.glazeAPI symbols instead of enumerating sdk/current).
• "$GLAZE_BASE/agent-resources/current/.claude/skills/", the task skills that ship with the user's Glaze install (the set grows with each SDK release, so list the folder rather than trusting a fixed count). Core ones: glaze-component-patterns, glaze-frontend-rules, glaze-backend-rules, glaze-ipc-communication, glaze-data-storage, glaze-external-api, glaze-browser-window-recipes, glaze-theming, glaze-oauth. Newer ones you should know exist:
  • glaze-ai: built-in AI via the user's Glaze account (see "Newer SDK capabilities" below).
  • glaze-claude-cli: integrate the user's local Claude Code CLI via claude -p / --print. Not the default AI path; only for users known to have Claude Code installed.
  • glaze-mcp-server: expose an app's data/actions as an MCP server (standalone stdio by default, in-app HTTP for live control) so the app is usable from Claude Code, Codex, etc.
  • glaze-native-images: native app icons, file icons, and Quick Look thumbnails via getFileIconUrl() / getFileThumbnailUrl() from @glaze/core/utils.
• The app's own "$SRC/CLAUDE.md" and "$SRC/.glaze_memory/PROJECT-CONTEXT.md" (where SRC="$GLAZE_BASE/apps/<app-folder>/.glaze-sources").