I installed the Golden Gate RC from Sequoia completely bypassing Tahoe. It feels like the UX papercuts are not going be the main issue even though I still prefer the Sequoia look to the Golden Gate look.

I found some bad choices made by Apple and here are some fixes to those.

Disable “Ask Siri” context menu pollution

codes=(soft apwn exit loca lock logo rlgo rcnt rrst rest rsdn shut slep spro syss)
args=(-int 0)
for code in $codes; do
    hex=$(printf %s "$code" | xxd -p -u)
    args+=(-int "$((16#$hex))")
done
defaults write -g NSAppleMenuAllowedItems -array "${args[@]}"

to revert it back

defaults delete -g NSAppleMenuAllowedItems

Disable the floating Siri AI pop over button erstwhile “Writing Tools”

sudo mkdir -p /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain && \
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/WritingTools LightweightUI_macOS -dict Enabled -bool false

revert back

sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/WritingTools LightweightUI_macOS

Fix the wallpaper panel crash in settings

The first restart brought the default Golden Gate wallpaper back and it took some searching to find out that this is an RC issue. Hopefully gets fixed before the release on Monday.

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/desktoppicture.db && killall Dock