SlyPilot Roadmap: What Has Shipped and What Is Being Considered
Make Windows feel like one responsive, unified workstation, and cut down on the number of separate background utilities and cloud subscriptions it takes
This page is a status report, not a promise. The first part lists what already exists in the program today. The second part lists ideas under consideration, with no dates and no commitments. The core program is free (MIT, source included, no licence, no trial, no time limit); four parts, marked "SlyPilot Pro" below, are the optional one-time purchase described on the SlyPilot Pro page. Nothing that is free today is planned to become paid.
🧭 What Guides the Work
Make Windows feel like one responsive, unified workstation, and cut down on the number of separate background utilities and cloud subscriptions it takes to get there, with a program that never steals focus, keeps your audio on your PC, and asks before it downloads, records or sends anything.
✅ Built: What Exists Today
"Built" means it is in the current program (most of it has automated tests; the Surface Dial support was written without a Dial at hand and tested through its command-line events). Public downloads are not available yet (see Download).
The desktop core
- Virtual desktops, Touch Bar, Peek Pill, radial menu and snap layouts, with zero focus loss; Surface Pen and Surface Dial support; workspaces and auto-routing; desktop emoji badges.
- Window power tools: auto-tile, focus mode, stash, picture-in-picture and reading modes, scenes, gather and rescue, timers, audio presets, per-app volume.
- Your own button sets per program on the Touch Bar, your own snap zones, editable keyboard shortcuts with a conflict check, and display-layout profiles for docking and undocking (off by default).
- SlyPeek, first part: the Window Peeker shows a live preview of a window when you rest the mouse or pen on its row, also for windows on other desktops. Password-manager and private windows are never drawn.
- Per-program radial rings: the radial menu shows the tap buttons of the program in front as extra slices.
Voice, speech and reading
- Over 550 offline voice commands (the speech recognizer built into Windows), a command registry that drives the grammar, the guide and the safety rules, macros, aliases, app packs, key mode, a numbered click grid. Free.
- Push-to-talk AI dictation (SlyPilot Pro) with Whisper and Parakeet on your own PC, spoken punctuation and voice edits, per-app rules and your own word list. The free program opens Windows Voice Typing instead.
- Read-aloud for selections, the clipboard and screen rectangles, free with a Windows voice, and with 45 natural offline voices (SlyPilot Pro) (Kokoro, Piper, Supertonic).
AI on your text, and meeting notes
- AI actions (SlyAction): a language model you choose fixes, rewrites, shortens, translates or explains selected text. Built-in small local model (llama.cpp with Qwen models), Ollama, LM Studio, Ollama's cloud or OpenRouter (free models listed first). Your own actions, a usual action per program, screen / clipboard / meeting context, follow-ups, spoken forms, "put that back", and (with Pro dictation) optional polishing of dictated text. Free.
- Meeting notes (SlyMeeting, SlyPilot Pro): an offline transcript of your microphone and the PC's sound, with consent, a visible indicator, an optional summary, search from the command palette, and retention settings.
- Microphone mute and "who is listening" (SlyMute): one key for every microphone, a Touch Bar button, an optional ON AIR pill.
Screenshots, recording and guides
- Screenshots (free): a frozen screen to pick an area, a window, a control or a monitor, by voice, keys, pen, Touch Bar or command line; the preview, a history with Copy as file, pins, copy text (offline OCR), a colour picker, Quick Redact with solid boxes, and protected windows painted black.
- The screenshot editor, screen recording, scrolling screenshots and guides (SlyPilot Pro):
- the editor: marks that stay editable, a pressure-sensitive pen, Find secrets, Beautify;
- MP4 recording on the graphics card, with sound, click rings and shortcut badges, trim and GIF;
- long pages joined into one picture;
- "record a guide": numbered steps with pictures and captions from your clicks, exported as HTML or Markdown.
- Still open: a Word file for guides; tests with two monitors at different scaling.
Magnifier, presenting, drawing and assistants that show
- Built: the Magnifier (the Windows Magnifier driven by SlyPilot, the glass, typing glass, strip, pixel loupe, watched areas, profiles, several monitors, freeze, the second-screen view and Auto-Switcher in SlyPilot Pro), the presenter tools and Presenting mode, the drawing board, a light theme with an interface size and a high-contrast mode, and an assistant interface that can point, draw, tour, use the board and run the presenter tools, with prompts, resources, cancelling and a status call in the MCP server.
- Tried so far with automatic tests and on one Surface. A projector, a second monitor with a very different scaling, other pen displays and a real assistant working through a list of scenarios are still to be tried.
Reaching the PC from elsewhere
- Phone Remote (SlyPilot Pro): a trackpad, keyboard, microphone, Touch Bar, window list and remote-desktop-style screen view in a web page on your phone (Chrome on Android is what it was tested with), over your own Wi-Fi, with pairing, encryption and per-phone permissions. (This is the idea that was earlier called "SlyDeck Mobile".)
- Agent API and MCP server with levels, approvals, protected windows and a pause hotkey, plus a ready-made agent skill.
- Command line and Stream Deck use: command-line switches,
/say <voice command>, and the smallSlyCtl.execlient.
Everyday quality
- Text expander, clipboard picker, offline OCR, Find a setting (
Ctrl+Fin Settings), What's New after an update, Report a Problem (copies a redacted report and opens the project's issue page only after you say yes), a tidier tray menu, one title style for every window. - A first-run Welcome window that works as a chooser, and a Setup Doctor that checks your setup in plain words.
- A safer settings file: one writer, automatic repair if it is ever damaged, and a daily backup of the newest seven copies.
- A keyboard-only pass over the program's windows (Esc closes them, a checked tab order).
Comfort, power tools, files, sounds, pointers and the head mouse (free)
- Comfort: starting profiles, Settings that open on Basics, "? what can it do" in the palette, put a window back (
Ctrl+Alt+Win+U), recent notices, smart breaks and Calm mode. Comfort helpers. - Power tools: key remap, mouse gestures, Alt+drag, a cheat sheet of the program in front (hold Ctrl), crosshairs and a screen ruler. Power tools.
- Files: peek with Space in Explorer, file search in the palette, Rename Files, Resize Pictures, tidy a folder (also by itself). Files & Explorer.
- Displays and sound: brightness, resolution and the main monitor on one card; the volume mixer with Bluetooth headphones. Displays, sound & headphones.
- The head mouse: the pointer follows your head through the camera, clicks by holding still. Tested on one Surface front camera so far. Head mouse.
- The Sound Themer: new sounds for Windows in plain words, sound packs in one click (a free gallery of 20 packs, Sound Manager packs, Windows theme packs, Linux sound themes), make a pack from a style on your PC, shorten or fade one sound, packs that cover every event, quiet hours, Matching Sets with pointers, and one click back. Sound Themer, sound gallery.
- The Cursor Themer: mouse pointers in plain words, packs in one click without administrator rights (every pointer rewritten first), a gallery of 94 free packs (sixteen styles, busy pointers, themes, left-handed sets), pointers drawn by SlyPilot in any colour with a live preview, favourites, a pack a day, Matching Sets with sounds, a pack per mode, bigger while presenting. Cursor Themer, pointer gallery.
- The Link Router, translate a screen area and fill-ins for the text expander.
More in SlyPilot Pro
- Live captions of any call in any language and the meeting copilot (Summary, Action items, What did they ask?, Catch me up). Captions & copilot.
- Memory: find anything you read, copied or heard again; text only, encrypted, on your PC. Memory.
- Settings sync through your own shared folder; tested with simulated PCs so far. Settings sync.
Packaging and quality
- An installer (per-user, no administrator rights) and a portable zip. Both are unsigned for now.
- Microsoft Store material is prepared (an MSIX package builder that works with a packaged-app data folder, a listing text, a privacy policy and screenshots), but nothing has been submitted, and the Store is not available.
- An automated test suite that runs against a throw-away copy of the program, so your own settings can never cause or suffer from a test run.
🔍 Under Consideration
None of the following is promised, dated or scheduled. They are ideas that make sense next to what already exists.
Publishing and trust
- Making the project public (the repository is private at the moment) and publishing the installer and zip as downloads.
- Code signing, so Windows SmartScreen stops warning on the installer. This depends on a certificate and is parked.
- A Microsoft Store submission, which would also sign the package for free. The material exists; the submission, which needs the author's own account and identity check, has not been done.
The Phone Remote
- An Android wrapper app for the Phone Remote: the same web page loaded in a small app that trusts only your PC's certificate, so there is no browser warning, microphone access does not depend on browser rules, and it could reconnect in the background. It would hold no logic of its own. It is an idea, not a commitment.
- Other ideas noted for it: using several PCs from one phone, iPhone support (an idea only: not planned yet, and the browser rules differ and would need testing; today only Chrome on Android is supported), and use away from home through a private network of your own.
Features that could grow
- A live preview on the Touch Bar's active-window chip (the desktop buttons already show a live map of their desktop on hover).
- Settings sync for key remaps, and resizing WebP and HEIC pictures.
- More app-specific radial rings and button sets out of the box (today you define them yourself).
- Screen-reader names for edit boxes, lists and tabs (own accessibility objects), the main accessibility gap that is still open; it needs testing with a real screen reader.
- Real-hardware validation: the multi-monitor and docking features have been developed and tested on limited hardware, so more real-world testing with several displays is wanted before they are on by default (they are off by default today).
- A visual workflow builder for macros. Today the Voice Library has a step picker built from the command list; a drag-and-drop canvas is a bigger project and is not scheduled.
Not planned
- Warp Pointer (a seamless cursor between mismatched monitors): it needs several displays to develop and test, and mature free tools already exist.
- A non-English interface. AI dictation (SlyPilot Pro) already covers 38 languages; the interface, commands and wake word stay English for now.
- Moving free features behind a licence. The free core stays free: virtual desktops, the Touch Bar, snap, workspaces, the palette, voice commands, AI actions, the agent API and MCP server, the text expander, clipboard, OCR and SlyMute. Nothing that is free today is planned to become paid.
💬 A Note on Cost
The core of SlyPilot is free (MIT licence, source included, no licence, no trial, no time limit), and donations are welcome. SlyPilot Pro is an optional one-time purchase (US$39 for up to 3 personal PCs) that unlocks AI dictation, the phone remote, natural voices and meeting notes. It is unlocked with a SLY-... licence key (activated online for a signed 30-day offline lease, with no account and no usage telemetry) or an offline SlyPilot.lic file; the version you buy keeps working, 1 year of updates is included, and there is a 30-day refund. The details are on the Pro page. If any of this ever changes, it will be said plainly, with what stays free stated first.