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Known limitations

The features described in this documentation are complete as of version 0.1.0. This page lists what Orbit currently cannot do, or does only in part, grouped by area. Behavior that only real data can confirm is covered by the manual acceptance checks.

Claude subscription

  • The network connection is Claude Code's. The Claude subscription provider runs Claude Code as a child process, so for this provider the connection to Anthropic is made by Claude Code, not by Orbit itself.
  • Reset time of the usage limit. Orbit takes it from Claude Code's limit event for the request that was rejected; an earlier warning may be about another usage window and does not count. When Claude Code reports the limit only as text, Orbit reads a time of day ("resets 3pm (Europe/Berlin)") but not a date ("resets Oct 3"). The notice then says only that the limit has been reached.
  • Outdated Claude Code is recognized only by its refusal of Orbit's command-line options.
  • Signing in. Sign In… runs claude auth login --claudeai, which opens Anthropic's sign-in in your browser. If the browser does not open, sign in once with claude auth login in Terminal.

See Choosing a language model.

Other providers and Test Connection

  • Test Connection detects a model without tool support only on Ollama, because it asks Ollama's model information. With other OpenAI-compatible servers, the first request reports it.
  • A link counts as yours only when it is in the message of the current request, exactly as you wrote it. A link from an earlier message gets a confirmation card, and so does one from your message after Orbit restarted and you clicked Try Again.
  • A public name that points into your local network (through DNS) is not recognized as local: it gets the card like any other link from elsewhere.
  • A link you wrote without a scheme opens with https (into the local network with http). For a site without HTTPS, write http:// yourself.

See Tools → open_url.

Apps and system

  • No Focus or Do Not Disturb tool. macOS has no public way for apps to switch a Focus. A shortcut with the action Set Focus can; see Tools → Switching a Focus or Do Not Disturb.
  • Shortcuts run through /usr/bin/shortcuts. Its output format (names with identifiers) and what Escape stops of a running shortcut are verified by hand; actions of a shortcut that macOS already started may still finish.
  • Appearance: set_appearance switches between light and dark only, not to Automatic.
  • Volume: set_volume changes only the current output device, and only the one its confirmation card named. On Bluetooth, AirPlay and USB devices the level read right after a change can lag, which is why Orbit reports the level it set.

Selected text and context

  • Selected text is read only from apps that expose it through Accessibility (many Electron apps and some Java apps do not) and only up to 4,000 characters.
  • The context chips give up when Finder or the app takes longer than 0.3 seconds to answer.
  • Password managers are recognized by the identifiers their vendors ship. One that Orbit does not know is read like any other app, though a password in a password field is still never read.

Photos

  • Photos are searched by metadata only. What a photo shows, where it was taken and who is in it are not searched yet.
  • A click on a photo tile uses Photos' spotlight command with PhotoKit's identifier. That Photos then shows the photo is verified by hand; otherwise Photos only opens.
  • There is no Quick Look preview of photos.
  • Photos that are only in iCloud show a placeholder; Orbit never downloads them.
  • Shared albums are searched only when you name them; smart albums you made in Photos are not searched at all.
  • A search that has to check items one by one stops counting at 50,000 items.
  • A photo edited while its card is shown keeps its old thumbnail until Orbit restarts or the thumbnail leaves the memory cache.

Calendar and reminders

  • Show in Calendar and Show in Reminders use the links macOS itself builds. That they select the item (and the right occurrence of a recurring event) is verified by hand; otherwise Calendar or Reminders only opens.
  • Orbit cannot edit, move, complete or delete events and reminders, and it does not list attendees.
  • Completed reminders are shown for the last 30 days only.
  • A reminder created with a time gets an alert at that time. One with only a date relies on Reminders' own all-day notification.
  • Recurring events are listed per occurrence, but Orbit cannot create recurring events.

Permissions

  • macOS reports Apple Events (Automation) permissions only for running apps. Automation: Notes therefore shows Unknown while Notes is closed, and Allow… or Check… starts Notes or Mail in the background to ask.
  • The links into System Settings use the x-apple.systempreferences:com.apple.preference.security?Privacy_… addresses. If a future macOS ignores the page name, System Settings opens on its start page.
  • Full Disk Access is detected through Mail's folder only (Unknown without it) and may need a restart of Orbit to take effect.

See Permissions.

Mail

  • Message text is searched only through Spotlight, and there only at the start of words, not inside words. Without Spotlight (and always for unread-only searches and in Sent, Drafts, Junk and Trash), only subjects and senders are searched, so the assistant narrows by sender and time and reads candidates. See Tools → search_mail.
  • Searching all mailboxes without Spotlight can be slow on very large mailboxes. The search then reports the mailboxes it skipped, and a two-year search of every mailbox of a very large library can still return more than Orbit accepts; the assistant then narrows it.
  • mailbox: "all" searches every mailbox except Trash, Junk, Drafts and Outbox, which are recognized by their usual names (in English, German and other common languages). With Spotlight, inboxes are recognized by name too.
  • Replies need one paste (⌘V): Mail does not let scripts write into its reply window, so Orbit puts the text on the clipboard.
  • The Mail scripts are checked by compiling them and by running their Mail-free parts. Their behavior against a real mail library, and their speed, is verified by hand.

Notes

  • Words are matched the way Notes compares text: inside words, ignoring case, but accents must match.
  • A folder filter covers the notes directly in that folder, not those in its subfolders.
  • read_note returns text without formatting (checklist states, colors and fonts are lost), and attachments only as placeholders.
  • New notes are plain text.
  • The Recently Deleted folder is recognized by its localized name (in English and in your languages).
  • On very large libraries, a search with several words may look for the later words in titles only. See Tools → search_notes.
  • The Notes scripts are checked by compiling them and by running their app-independent parts. Their behavior against a real Notes library, and their speed with thousands of notes, is verified by hand.

Files

  • The file tools depend on Spotlight. Folders excluded from indexing (Spotlight's privacy settings) and volumes without an index are not searched, and new files appear once Spotlight has imported them (usually within seconds).
  • Files lying directly in your home folder itself (not in a subfolder) are not searched.
  • Keywords match the beginning of words. "rechnung" ("invoice") finds "Telekom-Rechnung.pdf" but not "Telekomrechnung.pdf", which matters for German compound words. Phrases are not supported. The same holds for files in instant search.
  • read_file cannot read Pages, Numbers and Keynote documents saved by current iWork versions; only older files contain a readable preview (QuickLook/Preview.pdf). The model suggests opening them instead.
  • read_file also cannot read Excel, PowerPoint and OpenDocument spreadsheets and presentations, EPUB, or scanned PDFs without a text layer (there is no OCR).
  • macOS types TypeScript files (.ts) as MPEG-2 video, so kind: code misses them in searches; read_file still reads them.
  • File cards: Quick Look opens without the zoom animation from the row. Show in Finder is ⇧⌘R, not ⌘R (⌘R retries a failed answer).
  • Apps are found only in the folders instant search covers (see User guide → What it searches); for example, apps in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications are not found, and nothing deeper than one level of subfolders.
  • Localized app names are found only in Orbit's language, in the first three of your preferred languages and in English (so "Rechner" finds Calculator on an English Mac that also lists German, but a fourth language is not searched).
  • The first search of Desktop, Documents or Downloads may bring up macOS's folder-access prompt for Orbit.

Language and localization

  • Orbit has no language setting of its own: System Settings chooses it (English or German, otherwise English; see User guide → Language), and a change takes effect after a restart of Orbit.
  • Chats keep the texts Orbit wrote into them (status lines, notices, cards) in the language Orbit had then. Only the note on what was sent follows a later change.
  • For contributors: localizable strings are found by call patterns (Text, Button, .help, String(localized:), …). Text passed to your own views needs String(localized:) or LocalizedStringKey("…") to be extracted. See Localization.

Accessibility

  • Links in an answer are reached with VoiceOver (its Links rotor) but not with Tab.
  • A long, richly formatted answer (lists, tables) takes about 10 ms per 1,500 characters to build when it scrolls into view; selectable text costs half of that.

See Accessibility.

Builds

  • Universal builds cross-compile the Intel (x86_64) part; it is not exercised on an Intel Mac during development.
  • Ad hoc builds lose their privacy permissions with every rebuild unless they are signed with the development certificate. See Permissions → Code signing and permissions.