Touchbarfix – a Simple GUI for Macbook Pro Touchbar Restart Commands

I built this after getting frustrated with constantly re-googling TouchBar restart commands. As a consultant who uses MacBooks daily, I knew the terminal solutions existed, but could never remember the exact syntax when I needed it.

What started as "I'll just create a simple GUI wrapper, should take 3 hours" became a week-long adventure. I thought it would be a quick AI prompt to Claude: "Build me a TouchBar fix app." Reality hit hard.

The journey was a masterclass in underestimating complexity: - Prototype worked in 30 minutes (I got cocky) - Then security warnings everywhere - "unidentified developer" - Learned about code signing, notarization, and hardened runtime - GitHub Pages SSL mysteriously broke after repo rename - Had to migrate to Vercel mid-launch - CI/CD pipeline failed with deprecated GitHub Actions - Tests worked locally but failed on GitHub runners - Xcode created workspace files in the wrong directories after renaming - Binary needed to be universal (Intel + Apple Silicon) - App Store requirements vs direct distribution differences

Each "simple" fix revealed three new problems. But honestly? I learned more about macOS development in a week than I thought possible, thanks to Claude Code as my patient coding mentor.

Core functionality is straightforward - it runs the same `sudo killall ControlStrip` and related commands that fix TouchBar issues, but with proper error handling and user feedback.

While I await Apple Developer Program approval for code signing, I'm releasing it as a free Founders Edition for 48 hours. After that, it'll be a paid app (€0.99 initially, then €6.99).

Feedback welcome, especially from other non-developers who've tackled similar automation projects with AI assistance.