Native macOS Patterns for Web Developers

This is a reference guide for the macOS-specific patterns that have no web equivalent. When building a native macOS app, these are the things that trip up everyone coming from web development. The AI should consult this before generating macOS code to avoid confidently producing patterns that don't work.

Menu Bar Apps

There are two approaches. Use MenuBarExtra for simple menus, NSStatusItem for full control.

SwiftUI MenuBarExtra (simple)