Peekaboo

Project Overview

Peekaboo is a macOS CLI and menu-bar app for screen capture, accessibility inspection, and native UI automation. Use it directly, let its agent plan multi-step work, or expose the same toolset to MCP clients.

Key Features

• Screen capture: Capture application windows or the entire system
• UI inspection: Get structured UI maps with element IDs
• UI automation: Click, type, press keys, and more
• MCP server: Connect to Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, and other MCP clients
• Background automation: Background UI actions without app focus
• Signed Bridge credentials: Support for background automation

Target Audience

• Developers who need macOS UI automation
• Users of AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor)
• Engineers who want to give AI agents screen awareness

Quick Start

# Install CLI via Homebrew (requires macOS 15+)
brew install steipete/tap/peekaboo

# Or install MCP package via npm (requires Node.js 22+)
npx -y @steipete/peekaboo --version

Check permissions and take a screenshot:

peekaboo permissions status
peekaboo see --no-elements --mode screen --path /tmp/peekaboo-screen.png

Core Advantages

• Native MCP support for deep AI agent integration
• Background UI automation without app focus
• Both CLI and menu-bar app interfaces
• Open-source and free (MIT)

System Requirements

• OS: macOS 15 or later
• Additional Dependencies: Node.js 22+ (for npm package)