Orion Docs

Why macOS and Windows warn about the Orion desktop app ​

When you download Orion from the website or GitHub releases, your operating system may show a security warning before the app opens. This is not because Orion is unsafe — it is because Orion is a free, open-source project and does not yet hold the commercial publisher certificates that trigger automatic trust in macOS and Windows.

What's actually going on ​

Apple and Microsoft both run gating systems that distinguish software from known commercial publishers from everything else. Getting that "known publisher" status requires paid certificates:

  • Apple requires an active Apple Developer Program membership and a paid notarization process to avoid Gatekeeper warnings on macOS.
  • Windows SmartScreen builds trust over time by tracking how many users have downloaded and run a given publisher's signed binaries. Until a threshold is reached — which takes time and volume — every installer from a new publisher shows a warning.

Orion is a community-driven, open-source project. We do not have the budget of a commercial software company, and right now those certificate and membership costs are a meaningful expense for a project that is otherwise free. That is the honest reason the warning appears: not malware, not a problem with the app — just the reality of how platform gatekeeping works for independent and community-built software.

The entire Orion codebase is public. You can read every line, inspect every release artifact, and verify the build yourself on GitHub before you install anything.

When you see a warning ​

  • You downloaded the macOS .dmg or Windows .exe installer.
  • macOS shows "cannot be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software" or "unidentified developer".
  • Windows SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC" or "Unknown publisher".

Run Orion anyway ​

macOS ​

  1. Download the .dmg and open it.
  2. Drag Orion to Applications.
  3. Open Orion from Applications or Spotlight.
  4. If macOS blocks the app:
    • Right-click Orion in Applications, choose Open, then confirm Open, or
    • Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to the Orion message, and choose Open Anyway.

Windows ​

  1. Run the downloaded .exe installer.
  2. If SmartScreen appears, click More info, then Run anyway.
  3. Finish the installer and launch Orion from the Start menu or desktop shortcut.

Prefer the CLI instead? ​

If you would rather skip desktop installers entirely, use the managed command-line installer from Install Orion. It installs the orion CLI and opens Orion in your browser without a separate desktop app download.

Last updated June 2026.

Apache-2.0 Licensed