Windows veteran's vibe-coded Task Manager now also runs on Mac and Linux — downloadable app is the result of a 107-page spec fed to Claude Code

6 hours ago 6

Legendary Windows developer Dave W. Plummer has been busy finessing his revamped Task Manager. His latest release, dubbed TMOG (Task Manager OG), was vibe coded by feeding Claude “a 107-page spec,” says the mind behind the original 80KB Task Manager, which debuted publicly in Windows NT 4.0 (1996). TMOG doesn’t just work natively on modern Windows 11 systems though; it struts its neon stuff on macOS and Linux, too.

I wrote a new Task Manager that runs natively on Windows, macOS, and Linux. You can get it now at https://t.co/z86piatXdM ... but why?Well, it started as an argument over whether you could vibe code Microsoft Word today. I didn't think so. But I figured... maybe something…August 23, 2026

Above you can read Plummer give some background regarding the latest TMOG release, interspersed with details about his son’s emergency appendectomy. Cutting a long story short, Plummer found he had lots of spare time waiting around the hospital and thought he'd put it to good use by doing some coding.

With a new MacBook Air M5 under his arm, Plummer decided not to follow his original plan of vibe coding a new version of Microsoft Word, sticking to a project he knows intimately – Task Manager. After constructing “a 107-page spec” and feeding it to Claude Code, he got a rough app working by the time his son left the hospital, having completed the first procedure. A spell of internal bleeding meant readmission and more portable M5 dev time for Dave.

The result of all this extra hospital waiting room time is that Plummer had abundant TMOG tinker time. For example, TMOG can “animate everything at 60 Hz, instead of once a second.” Moreover, there are oodles of visual customization options, plus some interesting retro-flavored presets.

The first versions of TMOG were generated on the portable M5 in about four and a half hours. They worked the first time, asserts the veteran dev, and then work on fine-tuning started from there. Reading through the social media interactions following the new TMOG announcement, it looks like there are still a few vibe-coding flaws to paper over, and Plummer seems busy responding to many individual comments. There are also plenty of positive messages about the responsiveness and capabilities of the TMOG beta versions available.

At the time of writing, the latest version of TMOG beta available is version 0.1.1 on all supported platforms.

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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

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