How do I start monitoring and set up Radar Dev Monitor?

Open Radar and find the panel

1. Open Radar Dev Monitor on a Mac running macOS 26 or later.
2. Find its terminal-style icon in the menu bar. The icon's accessibility name is Radar Dev Monitor. A normal launch does not open a main window.
3. Click the icon to open the server panel.
4. Start your development server using your usual terminal or development tool. Return to the panel to see its card.

Radar scans immediately when the panel opens, then refreshes every 2 seconds while it is open. If several servers are listed, scroll to reach the remaining cards. The panel header shows the number of monitored servers and their combined memory. The small relative time shows when the last successful sample was taken.

All clear with No monitored dev servers running means the current detection choices produced an empty list. A server may still be running if its tool is disabled, its project is ignored, or its command does not match a rule. See missing servers.

Click the menu bar icon again, click in another app, or press Escape while the panel has focus to close it. Closing the panel keeps monitoring active.

Open settings or quit monitoring

Right-click the menu bar icon and choose Settings…. The window has General, Detection, and Alerts tabs. General and Alerts preferences save as you change them. A custom tool editor has its own Add Tool or Save button.

Right-click the icon and choose Quit Radar Dev Monitor to end the monitoring session. Quitting clears Radar's delivered notifications. Your development servers continue running; use Stop or Stop All when you want to stop them.

The right-click utility menu also defines the standard Command-comma shortcut for Settings and Command-Q for Quit while that menu is active.

Choose refresh speed and menu bar information

1. Right-click the icon, choose Settings…, and open General.
2. Set Check for servers every to 5 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds, or 60 seconds. The default is 15 seconds.
3. Set Show in menu bar to the display you want:

The scan interval applies while the server panel is closed, including when a separate Settings or Server Details window is open. The panel itself always uses 2 seconds. Reopening the panel requests a fresh scan; there is no separate Refresh button.

Radar pauses scans and readiness requests while the Mac sleeps and requests a fresh scan after waking. CPU readings need a new comparison sample after sleep.

All menu bar display modes show only the icon when the monitored list is empty. Ignored projects are excluded from the count and memory total. One card can contain several related processes, so the count is a server-card count rather than a process count.

For example, choose 60 seconds if background changes can wait, then open the panel when you need closer observation. Choose Count and memory to keep the combined footprint visible without opening the panel.

Set startup behavior and remove an old startup item

1. Open Settings… → General.
2. Turn Launch at login on to register Radar Dev Monitor with macOS, or off to remove that registration.

The switch reads the current macOS registration when General appears. There is no fixed first-run value independent of the system's existing login-item state. Changing it does not stop servers or quit the current Radar session.

If startup does not work, reopen General and check the switch again. Registration failures do not produce an in-app error dialog, so a switch change alone is not proof that macOS accepted it. Include the symptom and your macOS version when asking for help. See permissions and local scope.

If Radar finds the previous app's startup file, General shows Old Dev-Monitor startup item found and Remove it. Click Remove it to delete ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.dev-monitor.plist. This removes the old file; it does not stop an already-running old app. Reopen General to check the row again; the view may retain an old display immediately after removal. If the file still exists, removal may not have succeeded. Do not delete unrelated login items to troubleshoot Radar.

Know the starting preferences

With no saved Radar preferences, the app uses these choices:

Existing saved choices take precedence. For the full options, see detection rules, project controls, and alerts.