The Island guide

A place to start.

Activate the app, connect your agents and Spotify, and make it yours.

Get Island.

Apple silicon · macOS 12.0 or later. Open the disk image and drag Island to Applications.

Install with Homebrew

brew install --cask Sullivansome/tap/island

If Homebrew requests trust for this vendor tap, review the Island cask, run brew trust --cask Sullivansome/tap/island, then repeat the install command.

Open Island → Settings → License and paste the license key from your Creem receipt. Use Manage devices to free a slot on an old Mac.

Island is US$19 for 2 Macs, paid once, with released Island 1.x updates. Online activation is required; activated Macs can work offline for up to 30 days. The plugins and SDK remain open source.

Pricing and release details

Connect your agents.

Agent Pulse ships with Island. After activating your license, open Market → My plugins → Agent Pulse and enable it. Select Connect agents on first use, or … → Connection settings in the plugin.

Setup adds local hooks for Claude Code, Codex, and the official Grok CLI. Restart Claude Code and Grok. In Codex, review and trust the hooks in Settings → Hooks or /hooks, then start a task. Installed hooks and observed activity are shown separately.

Codex permission hooks can also come from automatic approval. Agent Pulse reports them as a neutral permission check, not confirmed human input.

Agent Pulse setup and status limits ↗

Connect Spotify.

Open Spotify Desktop.
Start a song in the desktop app. The web player is not supported by this plugin.
Allow Automation.
When macOS asks, allow Island to control Spotify. If the strip says “Allow Automation,” open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation and enable Spotify access for Island or osascript.
Return to your music.
Restart Island if you changed the permission. The current lyric appears when synced lyrics are available. Right-click the Island to collapse it.

You don’t need a second Spotify login. Lyric lookups use your track’s information to search LRCLIB and NetEase.

Make My plugins yours.

Open Market… from Island’s menu-bar icon, or press ⌘ ⇧ M on macOS. Choose My plugins to see installed versions and runtime status.

Install a local plugin: Choose Install from folder…, select the folder containing island-plugin.toml and its executable, review its source and requested permissions, then approve.
Enable or disable: Open the plugin’s detail page and use Enable or Disable. Your choice is saved.
Update or remove: Review an available update before installing. When removing a plugin, you can keep its data for a later reinstall. Bundled plugins can be disabled.

Only install plugins you trust. Native plugins run with your OS user privileges; the permission list describes host capabilities, not a security sandbox.

When something needs attention.

“Plugin API 1 unsupported (host 2)”

The installed plugin was built for an older protocol. Replace both its manifest and executable with a compatible build. Changing the API number in the manifest does not update the code.

To rebuild the open-source Spotify plugin, run these commands from its source checkout with the official Island CLI installed:

Rebuild and replace the Spotify plugin

./scripts/package.sh
island-cli plugin install ./dist/com.sullivansome.spotify

My plugins keeps incompatible packages visible as Needs update. You can replace one through Install from folder, or remove it. Replacing a package preserves its data and enabled setting.

Spotify says “Allow Automation”

Check Spotify access under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation. If access is already enabled, toggle it off and on, then restart Island and play a song.

No lyrics for the current track

Check the network connection and try another song. Synced lyrics depend on provider coverage and a matching track. Playback can be available even when lyrics are missing.

A plugin won’t start

Open its detail page in My plugins and read the reported error. Use Retry for a runtime failure, or install a compatible package if it says Needs update.

Contact support ↗

Use Island on a Mac without a notch.

A camera notch is not required. Island’s compact strip also sits at the top of an external display, giving agent status and Spotify lyrics a place on a desktop setup.

The public app still requires an Apple silicon Mac with macOS 12 or later. Display compatibility does not add support for Intel Macs. Right-click the Island to collapse it when you need more space.

Set up Spotify lyrics ↗

Beyond macOS.

The public Island 1.0.0 download supports Apple silicon Macs running macOS 12 or later. Intel Mac, Windows, and Linux installers are not part of this release. The Spotify plugin supports macOS only.

The codebase also contains Windows and Linux shells. Agent Pulse can run on macOS or Linux with a compatible host, but plugin compatibility does not mean an Island installer is available for that platform.

Plugin development guide ↗