The Cook
Lock the view. Keep the Mac cooking.
The Cook launched on April 5, 2026 with 1 votes, #8,101 of 21,248 launches that month.
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.
The Cook keeps your Mac awake and productive behind a private fullscreen overlay.
When you step away, macOS makes you choose between privacy and progress. Lock the Mac and some flows lose momentum. Leave it open and your code, chats, and research are visible. The Cook keeps the screen awake, covers it with a private overlay, and lets your agents, builds, exports, and downloads continue. Named with a wink to Heisenberg's world: precise, quiet, and always in control. Universal binary — works on Apple Silicon (M1 / M2 / M3 / M4) and Intel Macs. Requires macOS 14+. Private, but some tasks can slow down, pause, or lose continuity. Everything keeps running, but your screen is exposed in shared spaces. Keep the display awake without locking it, then add a protected overlay on…from trythecook.com
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Agents Never SleepAug 2026 · agentsneversleep.app · ▲90Got tired of reaching for the terminal to caffeinate my mac and tweaking system settings Now got a new friend in my menubar Enjoy!
Drive any macOS app in the background without stealing the cursorApr 2026 · github.com · ▲192Hi 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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