The Cook

What it does

The problem is stupid simple — and nobody solved it. Step away from your Mac. Two bad choices: lock it and your AI agent stalls, your build pauses, your render crawls. Leave it open and your code, Slack DMs, and 47 tabs are on display. The Cook is the third option. A fullscreen privacy overlay that covers your screen while keeping your Mac fully awake underneath. Agents keep coding. Builds keep compiling. Exports keep exporting. Nobody sees a thing. A one-way mirror for your desktop.

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  ShadowMay 2026 · shadow.do · ▲219

  The interface AI needs. One that sees, hears, and runs.

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  Cuukit Screen Lid26d ago · cuukit.com · ▲4

  Keep your AI agents running while you step away

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  Shady for Mac2015 · ▲94

  Pull a virtual shade over your screen, rest your eyes

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  Plow Latch16d ago · plow.co · ▲147

  Run AI agents on your Mac with scoped access

• DA
  Drive any macOS app in the background without stealing the cursorApr 2026 · github.com · ▲192

  Hi HN, Francesco from Cua here. I hacked this project together last weekend, inspired by the Codex Computer-Use release and lessons learned from deploying GUI-operating agents for our customers. The main problem: when a UI automation process controls a desktop app today, it usually takes over the human’s session. Your cursor moves, keyboard focus gets stolen, windows jump to the front, and you have to stop working until the agent is done. That is why we have historically avoided encouraging users to run these processes directly on their host machine, instead relying on VMs or GUI containers…

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  ScreenVeilMay 2026 · apps.apple.com · ▲86

  Hide what shouldn’t be seen on your computer

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  Clipto MCP▲640

  Let agents source clips from terabytes of your local video

  Work · 18d ago · clipto.com

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  HyNote for Mac▲383

  Free local transcription that is 100% Private

  Work · 17d ago · hynote.ai

• 
  VoiceOS App Store▲330

  The app store for voice native apps that lives in your notch

  Work · 28d ago · voiceos.com

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  Scrimba Explain▲325

  Ask any question, get a video back instantly

  Work · 24d ago · scrimba.com

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  CleanShot 5.0 with Studio Mode▲278

  Mac-native app for screenshots, recordings and collaboration

  Work · 5d ago · cleanshot.com

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  Brila▲1,367

  One-page websites from real Google Maps reviews

  AI · Apr 2026 · brila.ai

• AG
  A game where you build a GPU▲964

  Thought the resources for GPU arch were lacking, so here we are

  Life & fun · Apr 2026 · jaso1024.com

• IB
  I built a tiny LLM to demystify how language models work▲915

  Built a ~9M param LLM from scratch to understand how they actually work. Vanilla transformer, 60K synthetic conversations, ~130 lines of PyTorch. Trains in 5 min on a free Colab T4. The fish thinks the meaning of life is food. Fork it and swap the personality for your own character.

  AI · Apr 2026 · github.com

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  Fathom 3.0▲803

  AI meeting notes: now bot-free, in ChatGPT & Claude + more

  AI · Apr 2026 · fathom.ai

• BC
  Brutalist Concrete Laptop Stand (2024)▲786

  Life & fun · Apr 2026 · sam-burns.com

• IB
  I built a frontpage for personal blogs▲783

  With social media and now AI, its important to keep the indie web alive. There are many people who write frequently. Blogosphere tries to highlight them by fetching the recent posts from personal blogs across many categories. There are two versions: Minimal (HN-inspired, fast, static): https://text.blogosphere.app/ Non-minimal: https://blogosphere.app/ If you don't find your blog (or your favorite ones), please add them. I will review and approve it.

  AI · Apr 2026 · text.blogosphere.app