Aether 🌌

The Ultimate Universal Game Launcher.

Aether is an open-source, next-generation game library manager. It exists to solve one problem: fragmentation. Your games are scattered across Steam, Epic, GOG, App Store, and disc images. Aether brings them home.

Designed by VibeNoobNotFound. Powered by .NET 10 & Swift with gRPC.

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🌟 Features

🎮 Universal Library

• Unified Interface: One grid to rule them all.
• Auto-Import: Instantly detects games from Steam, Epic Games Store, and macOS App Store.
• Manual Import: Add any executable, script, or App Bundle manually.
• Real-time Scanning: Background watchers keep your library in sync.

🖼 Premium Experience

• Native Aesthetics: Built with SwiftUI for 120fps animations and platform-perfect blurs.
• Immersive Detail View: Parallax headers and logo overlays.
• Media Gallery: Auto-fetched trailers (HLS/MP4) and high-res screenshots.
• Dark Mode: Hand-crafted dark theme.

🧠 Intelligent Metadata

• IGDB Integration: Industry-standard database for covers and metadata.
• Customizable: Drag and drop your own covers. Edit titles and descriptions.

🛡 System-Level Access

• Deep Scanning: Runs as Root (optional) to bypass macOS TCC restrictions.
• Sandbox-Free: Manages your entire system's library.

🚀 Quick Start

For Users

1. Download:
   • Latest Stable — Recommended
   • Pre-release — Beta features, may be unstable
2. Drag to Applications.
3. Launch Aether.
4. First launch: Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security to allow Aether to be opened.
   (This is needed because the app isn't signed with an Apple Developer certificate)

If You Get "App Can't Be Opened" Error But Doesn't Show Up in Privacy & Security Settings,

# Remove quarantine attribute
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Aether.app

# If still doesn't work
xattr -cr /path/to/Aether.app

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Nightly Builds

Automated builds are generated on every push to main. These are unsigned and intended for testing.

Download: Go to Actions → Select latest Nightly Build → Download artifact.

Installation: After unzipping, run:

xattr -cr /path/to/Aether.app

For Developers

# 1. Generate local gRPC definitions
./generate_proto.sh

# 2. Build Backend & Plugins
./build_all.sh

# 3. Open Xcode and Run
open Aether.MacOS/Aether.xcodeproj

See Build Guide for detailed prerequisites.

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📚 Documentation

• 🏗 Architecture: How we mix C# and Swift.
• 🧩 Plugin Guide: Write your own Importers and Metadata Providers.
• 🚀 Distribution: Share the app without paying Apple $99.
• 🛣 Roadmap: Plans for Windows, Linux, and Retro Emulation.
• 🛠 Build Guide: Compile from source.

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions!

• Frontend: Aether.MacOS/ (SwiftUI)
• Backend: Aether.Backend/ (C# .NET 10)
• Plugins: Plugins/ (C# Class Libraries)

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📸 More Screenshots

© Copyright & Legal

Developed by: VibeNoobNotFound

AI Co-Authors:

• Gemini 3 Pro (Architecture & Strategy)
• Claude 4.5 Opus (Code Generation & emotional support)

Copyright (c) 2025 VibeNoobNotFound. All rights reserved by our Robot Overlords.