Notes from building Vehla.
Less "AI is the future". More what we learned on the actual ship.
I Got Tired of Stacking Mac Utilities — So I Built One Command Center
A founder essay on why Vehla is a local-first Mac command center — keyboard palette, clipboard, windows, and AI in one hotkey — instead of another single-purpose utility stack.
Read on MediumVehla vs Raycast vs SuperCmd: which Mac command center fits you?
A sourced comparison of three different approaches: built-in local-first workflows, a mature launcher ecosystem, and a free open-source Raycast-compatible alternative.
Read the comparisonBest Raycast alternatives for Mac.
A practical guide to launcher and command-center alternatives, including Vehla, Alfred, SuperCmd, LaunchBar, and focused utility stacks.
Read the guideLocal AI on Mac without a subscription.
How MLX, Gemma, Ollama, LM Studio, BYOK cloud keys, and Vehla's local routes fit together on Apple Silicon.
Read the postWhat an MCP client means on a Mac.
A guide to connecting tools, reviewing permissions, and keeping agent workflows understandable from a local command center.
Read the postAI clipboard OCR for Mac.
How local OCR, image clipboard history, QR detection, and AI transforms make copied screenshots more useful.
Read the postVehla vs Raycast: which Mac command palette should you use?
Raycast is a polished launcher with a large extension ecosystem. Vehla is a native Mac command center with AI, local models, file actions, clipboard history, and workflows built in.
Read the postVehla vs Alfred: a modern Mac command center with AI built in.
Alfred is a classic Mac power-user launcher. Vehla brings the keyboard-first idea forward with AI, local models, native actions, and iCloud-synced workflows.
Read the postWhy we made local-first the default — and what it cost us.
Cloud inference is faster, cheaper to ship, and easier to support. We made the harder choice. Here's the math, the missteps, and the moment we knew it was right.
Read the postNotes on Gemma 4 E4B at 4-bit on Apple Silicon.
How Vehla thinks about Gemma 4 models, default local inference, and the trade-offs between speed, quality, and download size.
Read the post11 rewrite tones, 1 prompt skeleton.
The structure behind every Rewrite — Professional, Casual, Confident, and the rest. What works, what flatters the model, and what we threw away.
Read the postDesigning a command palette you actually use.
Spotlight, Alfred, Raycast, Linear — every great palette has the same five details right. We rebuilt ours three times to get there.
Read the postWhat shipping v1.0 actually felt like.
What shipping a menu-bar AI assistant taught us about shortcuts, permissions, local models, and support.
Read the postWe removed telemetry.
What we learned about trust as a feature, and why Vehla does not collect prompts, outputs, or product analytics.
Read the post