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Permissions & Performance

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Permissions & Performance

#Requirements

  • macOS 15.0+ (Sequoia) – core automation APIs depend on Sequoia.
  • Screen Recording (required) – enables CGWindow capture and multi-app automation.
  • Accessibility (recommended) – improves window focus, menu interaction, and dialog control.
  • Event Synthesizing (optional) – enables hotkey --focus-background to post keyboard events to a target process without activating it.

#Granting Permissions

  1. Screen Recording
  • System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording.
  • Enable Terminal, your editor, or whatever shell runs peekaboo.
  • Benefit: fast CGWindow enumeration and background captures.
  1. Accessibility
  • System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.
  • Enable the same terminals/IDEs so Peekaboo can send clicks/keystrokes reliably.
  1. Event Synthesizing
  • Run peekaboo permissions request-event-synthesizing.
  • By default this requests access for the selected Peekaboo Bridge host, which is the process that sends background hotkeys. Add --no-remote to request access for the local CLI process instead.
  • If needed, enable Peekaboo in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.
  • Benefit: process-targeted background hotkeys without focus stealing.
  1. Check Permissions

    2. ``bash peekaboo permissions status # Check current permission status peekaboo permissions grant # Show grant instructions ``

#Bridge and subprocess runners

peekaboo permissions status prints a Source: line. If it says Peekaboo Bridge, capture and automation permissions are being checked on the selected host app. Grant Screen Recording and Accessibility to that host, or bypass Bridge for local capture when the caller already has Screen Recording:

peekaboo see --mode screen --screen-index 0 --no-remote --capture-engine cg --json

This is useful for OpenClaw or other Node/subprocess runners where the parent process has TCC grants but the Bridge host does not.

#Performance Tips

  • Hybrid enumeration – with Screen Recording enabled, Peekaboo prefers the CGWindowList APIs and falls back to AX only when necessary.
  • Built-in timeouts – window/menu operations have ~2 s default timeouts to avoid hangs; adjust via CLI options if needed.
  • Parallel processing – when both permissions are enabled, window queries and captures stream concurrently.

If automation feels sluggish, confirm permissions, then re-run with --verbose to inspect timings.