Peekaboo 🫣
August 16, 2026 · View on GitHub
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.
Install
The released CLI and app require macOS 15 or later.
CLI with Homebrew
brew install steipete/tap/peekaboo
MCP package with npm
The npm package requires Node.js 22 or later and includes the CLI plus its MCP launcher.
npx -y @steipete/peekaboo --version
See MCP setup to connect it to Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, or another MCP client.
Mac app
Download the signed DMG from the latest GitHub release. The menu-bar app provides permission onboarding, visual feedback, and agent sessions; install the CLI separately when you also need peekaboo on PATH.
For source builds and alternative install details, see the installation guide.
Quick start
Check the permissions available to Peekaboo, then take a screenshot:
peekaboo permissions status
peekaboo see --no-elements --mode screen --path /tmp/peekaboo-screen.png
Screen capture requires Screen Recording permission. Accessibility permission enables UI inspection and control; the permissions guide covers setup and the additional permission used for synthetic input.
Inspect a running app to get a structured UI map with opaque element IDs:
peekaboo see --app Finder --json
That is the core loop: observe the current screen, choose an element from the result, and act on it.
What's new in 4.2
Peekaboo 4.2 deepens background automation with exact, generation-bound receipts for browser connections, dialogs, coordinate snapshots, and opaque web-view scrolling. These protocol upgrades keep long-lived Bridge sessions pinned to the process, window, and semantic target they actually validated, so stale or ambiguous work fails before dispatch instead of drifting to the active app.
Automate an app
Target an element by its accessible label, then send text to the same app:
peekaboo click "Address and search bar" --app Safari
peekaboo type "github.com/openclaw/Peekaboo" --app Safari
peekaboo press Return --app Safari --foreground
Targeted semantic and typed input uses background delivery when Peekaboo can resolve the process, so the app does not have to become frontmost. Raw press chords always require explicit --foreground; prefer a semantic action such as menu click in background workflows. See the automation guide for element IDs, coordinates, snapshots, waits, and input behavior.
Agent and MCP
The agent combines the same observation and action tools into a natural-language run:
peekaboo agent "Open Safari, go to github.com, and search for Peekaboo"
Agent runs need a configured model provider. See agent setup for providers and sessions, or MCP setup to expose Peekaboo's tools to another client.
Command map
| Goal | Commands | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Observe the desktop | see, screen list, window list | Capture and inspection |
| Interact with UI | click, type, press, scroll, drag, set-value, action | Automation |
| Control macOS | app, window, menu, menubar, dock, dialog, space | Command reference |
| Run workflows | agent, capture | Agent · Capture |
| Integrate with clients | mcp, browser, tools | MCP |
Run peekaboo help <command> for live CLI help. The complete command index links to flags, examples, and troubleshooting for every command.
Configuration
Peekaboo stores provider credentials and settings under ~/.peekaboo. Use peekaboo config to inspect or change them, and consult the configuration guide for profiles, environment variables, and custom providers. The provider reference covers hosted, compatible, and local model backends.
Shell completions for zsh, bash, and fish come from peekaboo completions; see the completion guide for persistent setup.
Learn more
- Project direction
- Platform support
- Architecture
- Building from source
- Testing
- Agent chat loop
- Command reference
Community
- PeekabooWin — Windows-first rewrite of the Peekaboo automation loop (JavaScript + PowerShell) by @FelixKruger
- PeekabooX — Linux-first rewrite of the Peekaboo automation loop (Rust + Python) by @nordbyte
Development
Source builds require macOS 15 or later, Swift 6.2 or later, Node.js 22 or later, and the repository's submodules.
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm run build:cli
pnpm run lint:docs
pnpm run test:safe
More build, signing, and test details live in docs/building.md.
License
MIT. See LICENSE.