● Covered by 1 source · 1 reportLow impact1 neutral
bigarrow: macOS CLI tool for AI agents to highlight screen elements
Key points
- macOS command-line tool for visual screen annotations.
- AI agents can use it to highlight elements for user interaction.
- Draws arrows, boxes, and text on top of all windows.
- Clicks pass through, keyboard focus remains active.
Introducing bigarrow for macOS
bigarrow is a new command-line utility for macOS designed to enable AI agents to provide visual guidance on a user's screen. It allows agents to draw arrows, boxes, and text overlays on top of all open windows, without requiring macOS permissions for drawing.
Addressing AI-User Interaction Gaps
The tool aims to solve a common problem where AI agents can perform complex tasks but struggle to direct users to specific on-screen elements for interaction. Instead of printing text instructions, bigarrow provides a visual 'finger' for the AI to point to buttons or other interface components.
The overlays are transparent to clicks, and keyboard focus remains with the active application, ensuring minimal disruption to the user's workflow.
Functionality and Implementation
bigarrow operates as a single Swift binary with no daemon, menu-bar icon, or telemetry. It supports various customization options for the arrows and text, including color, style, shape, and size. The tool is MIT licensed and has been tested on macOS 27.
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Primary sources
GitHub cmc_internal/api GitHub github/collect GitHub franzenzenhofer/big-arrow-on-the-screen GitHub _private/browser GitHub get-started/accessibility GitHub open-source/sponsorsReporting from
bigarrow is a new macOS command-line tool that allows AI agents to draw arrows, boxes, and text overlays on the screen. This tool addresses the challenge of AI agents needing to direct user interaction with graphical interfaces, providing a visual cue for specific actions.