Battery Trend Scout

Battery Trend Scout

Use this skill when the user wants a better battery experience than the stock macOS panel: menu bar first, compact at a glance, and deeper when opened.

Presentation

• Make the surface feel like a polished Apple utility, not a diagnostics dump.
• Lead with one calm status line and one clear trend cue.
• Keep the visual language dark, minimal, and readable at a glance.

Build shape

• Prefer an AppKit status item with SwiftUI content in the popover or detail window.
• Show battery percentage, charging state, power source, low power mode, and energy mode first.
• Add a compact trend strip for recent charge or drain samples if local history exists.
• Surface significant energy users only when the system exposes them.
• If the Mac has no battery, fall back to power source and energy load signals without pretending to show laptop-only data.

Guardrails

• Do not invent health, temperature, or history metrics that the system does not expose.
• Keep the menu bar icon simple and professional.
• Use one clear primary action: open details, not a crowded command sheet.
• Make the detail panel readable on a small screen and graceful on desktop Macs.

Good defaults

• Use restrained typography and monochrome system symbols.
• Prefer one clean summary line over multiple noisy badges.
• Keep trend logic local and reversible.
• If exporting, prefer a small text or markdown snapshot over a heavy report.

When extending

• Add history sampling only if it improves a visible user decision.
• Add settings only if they affect battery visibility, refresh rate, or alert thresholds.
• If the user asks for a bigger product, turn the skill into a menu bar app plus a details board, not a full dashboard.