# Let your AI agents paint big arrows, boxes and text on your screen **big-arrow-on-the-screen** (`bigarrow`): one small macOS CLI and an agent skill. Click-through, never steals the focus, gone by itself. MIT. [![CI](https://github.com/franzenzenhofer/big-arrow-on-the-screen/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/franzenzenhofer/big-arrow-on-the-screen/actions/workflows/ci.yml) [![License: MIT](https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-blue.svg)](LICENSE) ![Hacker News with five bigarrow arrows: the actual article is in here, finally an arrow bigger than this one, same design since 2007, today's thread already argued in 2014, not a lurker? click login](docs/images/hero-hn.png) > Your AI agent can refactor a monorepo, write a migration and explain monads, but when it needs you to click one button it prints *"please click Allow in the dialog"* into a terminal you are not looking at. `bigarrow` gives it a finger. ![bigarrow pointing at a dialog's Allow button](docs/images/demo.gif) ```bash bigarrow point --element "Allow" --app "System Settings" --text "Franz, click Allow" ``` A big, friendly arrow with a sign appears on top of everything, points at the thing, and goes away again. It is click-through, it never steals your focus, it works on every display and every Space, and it needs **no permission at all** to draw. It is one small Swift binary. There is no daemon, no menu-bar icon, no account, no telemetry, and, we checked twice, no AI inside. It is an arrow. ## What is this actually for? Fair question. Arrows have existed since roughly the Paleolithic. Here is what changed: software agents now do real work on your Mac, and they keep hitting the same wall, **the part that only a human may do.** - **"Click Allow."** macOS permission prompts, OAuth consent screens, "Open with...?" dialogs. The agent can find the button but must not, or cannot, press it for you. It can now point at it. - **"Your turn."** 2FA codes, CAPTCHAs, passkeys, a payment confirmation, a signature, a legal checkbox. The things an agent should never click on its own behalf. It points, you decide, it continues. - **"It's this window, not that one."** You have 14 Chrome windows. The agent knows which one it means: `--window "Google Chrome:Pull request"`. It even picks the right tab: `--app "Google Chrome:Pull request"`. - **"I need you, and you're making coffee."** `--say` reads the sign aloud. Your Mac will literally call you back to your desk. - **Guided setups and onboarding.** Walk a human through a settings pane step by step: `start`, wait until they acted, `stop`, next step. Like a product tour, minus the product. - **Remote help.** "No, the *other* gear icon." Point at it instead of describing it. - **Demos, screencasts, docs.** Highlight what matters while recording, or render the arrow straight into a PNG with `--png` for documentation. - **Debugging coordinates.** Not sure your Accessibility, screenshot or Peekaboo coordinates are right? Point at them and look. `--dry-run --json` tells you where it *would* point without drawing. ### Situations we have all been in Staged with a neutral demo dialog and recorded with the real `bigarrow` on a clean CI runner (`BACKDROP_ARGS=--cover scripts/funny-scenes.sh`). The dialogs are fake. The feelings are real. | | | |---|---| | ![Delete node_modules? Yes. Obviously.](docs/images/scenes/node-modules.png) | ![Cookie banner: Franz, nobody reads these either](docs/images/scenes/cookies.png) | | `--color green` | `--shape zigzag --color orange` | | ![2FA: This is where you sigh and find your phone](docs/images/scenes/two-factor.png) | ![Friday deploy: the agent strongly suggests Cancel](docs/images/scenes/agent-needs-you.png) | | `--color purple` | `--close-button`, because the human gets the last word | | ![Three arrows, one Save button](docs/images/scenes/which-button.png) | ![Grant Accessibility to Terminal, not to bigarrow](docs/images/scenes/permissions.png) | | three `start`s, one button, zero ambiguity | `--style box --corners sharp`, plus a lesson about macOS permissions | | ![Software update: Twirl. Then click.](docs/images/scenes/spiral.png) | | | `--shape spiral`: once around the sign, then to the button | | What it is not: a screen annotator for humans, a click bot, or a screenshot tool. It never clicks, types or captures anything. It only points. Deliberately. ## Install ```bash brew install franzenzenhofer/tap/bigarrow bigarrow install-skill # teaches Claude Code (~/.claude/skills) and Codex (~/.agents/skills) ``` From source: `swift build -c release` (Xcode 16 or newer, macOS 14 or newer), binary at `.build/release/bigarrow`. ## The three commands an agent needs ```bash bigarrow point --element "Allow" --app "System Settings" --text "Franz, click Allow" # by label bigarrow point --at 760,500 --text "Franz, click HERE" # by coordinate bigarrow start --window "Safari:Inbox" --text "This window" && bigarrow stop # until stopped ``` Every arrow ends by itself. Nobody has to clean up after an agent that forgot: | | | |---|---| | Time limit | `bigarrow point ... --duration 10` (default 8 s; `start` 300 s; `--duration 0` = no limit) | | Start and stop | `bigarrow start ...` returns at once; `bigarrow stop` (or `stop --all`) removes it | | The agent goes away | an arrow ends when the agent process that drew it exits (`CLAUDE_PID`, or `BIGARROW_OWNER_PID`) | | The human answers | `bigarrow stop --hook` as a Claude Code `UserPromptSubmit` hook clears that session's arrows | | The human closes it | `--close-button` puts a clickable X on the sign (opt-in) | Targets: `--at X,Y`, `--rect X,Y,W,H`, `--mouse`, `--window App[:title]`, `--element Label --app App`, `--peekaboo ID --snapshot see.json` (from Peekaboo's `see --json`). Coordinates are global top-left logical points, the space Accessibility, CGWindowList and Peekaboo report. `--display N` makes `--at` and `--rect` relative to one display. An arrow is tied to the app it points into. `--app App[:window or tab title]` (or `--window`) brings that app, window or Chrome/Safari tab to the front first, because pointing at a window hidden behind your terminal is a special kind of unhelpful; and while another app covers the target, the arrow hides and comes back with it. `--no-raise` leaves your windows alone. `bigarrow elements --app X` lists what `--element` can match. `bigarrow doctor` shows permissions, who owns them, and your displays. Every command takes `--json`. Exit codes: 0 ok, 2 bad input, 3 target not found, 4 permission missing. Agents love exit codes. Humans tolerate them. ## Looks It is an arrow, so we spent an unreasonable amount of time on how it looks. ![Big arrows with signs: click here, sign here, over here, you are here, type your name, read this first, no the other one, click Allow](docs/images/hero.png) ![every border style and colour option: default white border with shadow, white-black, black, close button, custom border and text colours](docs/images/looks.png) Real screenshots on a clean test machine, six looks over white, macOS grey, dark, black, red and a busy web page: ![default, white-black, black, close button, custom colours and a black arrow, each over six backgrounds](docs/images/backgrounds.png) ![every style, shape, size and colour](docs/images/gallery.png) - `--shape bend|straight|zigzag|spiral` (zigzag for when it is *really* urgent; spiral loops once around the sign before it points, for when it must be impossible to miss) - `--style arrow|ring|box`; rings and boxes are border-only, so you still see what is under them - `--size S|M|L`, `--corners round|sharp` - `--color red|orange|yellow|green|teal|blue|purple|pink|black|white|#RRGGBB` - `--border shadow|white-black|black`: the default is a white border (dark on light colours) with a drop shadow; `white-black` puts a thin black edge outside the white border instead of the shadow; `black` is just a thin black outline - Every colour is yours: `--border-color`, `--text-color`, `--edge-color`, and for the X `--close-color` and `--close-x-color`. Left out, each picks a readable colour itself - `--close-button` puts an X inside the sign's right end (white circle, X in the arrow colour), where it never covers the text or leaves the screen - `--follow` moves with a window or element, `--until-click` ends on a click on the target, `--say` speaks the sign - Several arrows at once keep their signs out of each other's way The shaft grows out of the sign through a flared joint that never runs into a rounded corner. `scripts/gallery.py` renders every combination offscreen and zooms into every joint ([junctions](docs/images/junctions.png)), because a seam at the joint was, apparently, unacceptable. ## FAQ **Does it need Screen Recording or Accessibility?** Drawing needs neither. `--element`, `elements`, `--until-click` and `front --window` use Accessibility, which macOS grants to the app that runs your shell (Terminal, iTerm2, Ghostty, VS Code, Claude), never to `bigarrow` itself. `bigarrow doctor` names that app, and exit code 4 tells the agent exactly what to ask you for. `--window App:title` reads window titles, which macOS 26 hides without Screen Recording; `--window App` alone needs nothing. **Will it steal my focus while I'm typing?** No. That was the hardest bug in the project: `NSApplication.run()` quietly activates a process that has no terminal, so detached arrows grabbed the focus. `bigarrow` pumps events itself instead, and the tests check that the frontmost app never changes. **Can I click through it?** Yes, everywhere except the sign and the shaft: a click there removes the arrow (it dims slightly under the pointer to say so). A click on the target, or anywhere near the arrow's head, goes straight through to the app. Clicking the arrow never takes the focus. **Multiple displays? Full-screen apps? Stage Manager? Spaces?** Yes, yes, yes, yes. Displays left of or above the main one (negative coordinates) included. Unplug a display while an arrow is on it and the arrow politely leaves. See the [verification matrix](docs/verification/multi-display.md). **How much CPU does a pulsing arrow cost?** 1.4 % measured on a CI runner. Core Animation does the work in the render server. **Does `--element` work inside web pages?** In Electron apps, yes. In Chrome, only when Chrome runs with `--force-renderer-accessibility` (or VoiceOver is on); Chrome ignores the usual request to expose page content, verified on Chrome in October 2026. Chrome's own toolbar always works. Otherwise point at the page's coordinates, which the skill explains. **Why not just use [some screen annotation app]?** Those are for humans drawing on screens. This is for programs pointing at things, from a shell, with exit codes. Twenty-six tools were checked before writing a line ([research](docs/research/)). None did this. **Is it AI?** No. It is the least intelligent part of your AI stack, and proud of it. ## How we know it works - 87 automated tests: geometry, placement, joint smoothness, a golden image, recorded window-server, Accessibility and Peekaboo 4.9.0 fixtures, and tests against the real window server (window level 1000, clicks pass through, focus never moves, detach and stop timing). CI runs them on macOS 15; they also passed on macOS 26 and macOS 27. - 17 behaviour checks on a clean runner ([visual.yml](.github/workflows/visual.yml)): real clicks on the X, `--until-click`, `--follow`, raising (and `--no-raise`), hiding while covered, selecting a Chrome tab, ending with the owner process, `stop --hook`, `--say`, full-screen apps, Stage Manager, a Space switch, a second display, a 2x display, unplugging a display mid-arrow, CPU. The demo GIF above is recorded by the same workflow, on a desktop with nothing personal on it. - A fresh agent given only the skill and "show Franz where the Reload button in Chrome is" found it by label and built the right command ([transcript](docs/skill-tests/2026-10-08-chrome-reload.md)). It also found a bug, which is now a test. ## For agents (and the humans who configure them) The skill in `skill/big-arrow/` works for both Claude Code and Codex (one `SKILL.md`, Agent Skills format, plus `agents/openai.yaml` for Codex). It tells the agent when to point, how to pick a target, to write a full sentence on the sign, to add `--say` when you are probably not looking, and to `stop` once you have acted. ## Plan, decisions, research `docs/plan/PLAN.md` (goal, architecture, risks), `docs/plan/TICKETS.md` (generated from `docs/plan/tickets.json`), `docs/decisions/`, `docs/research/` (verified facts with links), `docs/verification/`, `docs/skill-tests/`, `CHANGELOG.md`. ## Prior art and thanks Peekaboo's visualizer (https://github.com/openclaw/Peekaboo) and Nameplate (https://github.com/steipete/Nameplate) by Peter Steinberger showed the overlay window recipe and the agent-skill packaging. Neither draws a pointing arrow with a label, which is the gap this project fills. `bigarrow` reads Peekaboo's `see --json` as an optional target source. ## License MIT. Point responsibly.