cerebro

Cerebro is a free, open-source launcher app for Windows, Linux, and macOS. A launcher is a small program that pops up when you press a keyboard shortcut, lets you type a few words, and then does something useful: opens an app, searches the web, converts a currency, or navigates to a file on your computer. You trigger Cerebro with Ctrl+Space by default, though you can change that in the preferences.

Out of the box, Cerebro covers the basics: searching the web with your preferred search engine, launching apps by name, browsing files with a live preview, doing quick calculations, and converting units or currencies in multiple languages. If you type something like "15$" or "100 eur in gbp", it converts it on the spot without opening a browser.

The real draw is the plugin system. You can install extra plugins directly from inside Cerebro by typing "plugins" followed by a name, so you never have to leave the app to expand what it can do. A community-maintained list of available plugins exists on GitHub. Developers who want to build their own plugins can follow a separate documentation guide for that purpose.

A few keyboard shortcuts speed things up once you get used to the app. You can copy any result to your clipboard with Ctrl+C, jump to a specific result in the list with Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+9, or move through results using Vim-style keys if that is your preference. Light and dark themes are both included, and you switch between them through the Cerebro Settings screen.

Under the hood, Cerebro uses Electron (a framework for building desktop apps with web technologies) and React. It runs two background processes so that heavy plugin tasks do not slow down the main window. The project is built and released through GitHub Actions, and new versions are posted to the releases page whenever they ship.