Installation

Looking for the iPhone? This page covers the macOS desktop app. ScarfGo, the iOS companion, ships via TestFlight — see ScarfGo and ScarfGo Onboarding for that flow.

System requirements

macOS 14.6+ (Sonoma) or newer.
Hermes installed at ~/.hermes/ for the local server window. (Remote servers are reached over SSH and don't need anything on the Mac side beyond what's already there.)
Apple Silicon or Intel Mac (Universal binary). An ARM64-only build is also published if you want a smaller download.

Download

Get the latest release from GitHub Releases:

Scarf-v<version>-Universal.zip — works on every supported Mac.
Scarf-v<version>-ARM64.zip — Apple Silicon only, smaller download.

First launch (Gatekeeper)

Scarf is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so the first launch should not require any right-click-to-open dance. If macOS still complains:

Open System Settings → Privacy & Security.
Scroll to the message about Scarf being blocked and click Open Anyway.
Confirm in the prompt that follows.

This only happens once per install.

What gets installed

Scarf is a self-contained .app bundle. It does not install background services, launch agents, or kernel extensions. It reads ~/.hermes/ directly (sandbox is intentionally off — see Architecture Overview).

Caches written by Scarf:

~/Library/Caches/scarf/snapshots/<server-id>/ — atomic SQLite snapshots pulled from remote servers.
~/Library/Preferences/com.scarf.app.plist — preferences and the server registry (when added).

Auto-updates

Scarf uses Sparkle for automatic updates from a GitHub-Pages-hosted appcast. See Updating.