Developers · Mac

An avatar for Mac apps and desktop companions

Two ways in. The Swift package renders the avatar inside your Mac app. The bitHuman CLI runs a complete desktop companion, and with its local conversation brain (BITHUMAN_LOCAL=1), speech recognition, the language model and the voice all run on the Mac. The session still reports usage online.

API and SDK use requires the Creator plan or higher.

Get an API secret First frame in the docs

Install

Swift package, in a Mac app

.package(url: "https://gitlab.com/bithuman/sdk/homebrew-bithuman", from: "3.0.0")

The bitHuman CLI, for a desktop companion

curl -fsSL https://install.bithuman.ai | sh

What you need: Xcode 26+, API secret · sign-in (from the docs)

The full Mac guide

Add a conversation
The Swift package only renders, as on iPhone. For a complete desktop companion, the bitHuman CLI can run the whole conversation on the Mac.
- The local conversation brain (CLI)
  Speech recognition, the language model and the voice run on the Mac. It needs a one-time build and a model download on its first run; the docs give the steps and the size.
  Local conversation brain
- Your own services, in a Swift app
  The Swift package takes 16 kHz mono speech from any voice stack and returns frames, as on iPhone.
  Resample speech to 16 kHz
When the avatar renders in your app on the device and you use your own voice and language services, bitHuman receives usage metering only, never audio, video or conversation text.

Requirements

A Mac with Apple silicon; Intel Macs are not supported.

What it costs

Credits per minute

On the device (Essence 2, Expression 2): 2
bitHuman cloud avatar: 4
Managed voice chat (all-inclusive): 10

Not available on this platform

An offline license in a Swift-package app or on a Mac: offline licenses run on Linux.

Before you ship

The full checklist

Examples you can clone

Questions? Ask on Discord

Join the bitHuman Discord