use-computer

Reads and acts on a screen for computer-use agents. It reads the accessibility tree the operating system already maintains -- roles, names, states and clickable boxes -- and it moves the mouse, clicks, drags, scrolls, types text, presses key combinations, and captures screenshots.

Every interaction takes the highest rung it can reach:

1. Element, through the platform API -- the OS presses the button itself. No coordinates, so nothing to aim and no scale to get wrong.
2. Element, by coordinate -- the tree can see the control but exposes no way to operate it, so use-computer clicks its centre and tells you it did.
3. Pixel, from vision -- the tree cannot see it. Screenshot, ui-locator, click those pixels.

Each rung is cheaper, faster and more accurate than the one below. Rung three is the floor the whole ladder stands on and is not going anywhere; it is simply no longer the only rung. Everything is driven by another AI agent through a CLI that emits JSON on stdout and diagnostics on stderr, with a Python API underneath.

Install

pip install use-computer-cli            # no backend
pip install "use-computer-cli[local]"   # drive this machine's display (pynput + mss)
pip install "use-computer-cli[vnc]"     # drive a remote framebuffer over RFB (vncdotool)
pip install "use-computer-cli[tree]"    # read the accessibility tree (Windows, macOS)

Backends and the accessibility bindings are optional extras, imported lazily, so the package installs without them.

On Linux, do not use the tree extra. PyGObject has no Linux wheel, so pip would build it from source and fail. The bindings are already on almost every desktop; the virtualenv just has to see them:

sudo apt install python3-gi gir1.2-atspi-2.0
python3 -m venv --system-site-packages .venv
.venv/bin/pip install "use-computer-cli[local]"

gi is a compiled extension built for one Python minor version -- Ubuntu 22.04 ships it for 3.10 -- so the virtualenv has to be the distro's python3, not another minor version. Both packages report as installed either way, which is why the error message checks and says which case you are in. With uv: uv venv --python /usr/bin/python3 --system-site-packages.

The distribution is use-computer-cli because use-computer is taken on PyPI by an unrelated project. The command it installs is use-computer, and the package it imports is use_computer.

Use

use-computer tree --use laptop                          # what is on screen, structurally
use-computer click --role button --name "Invia"         # act on it by name
use-computer set-value --role text --name "Email" --value "mario@example.com"
use-computer click --x 120 --y 340 --use staging        # or by pixel, when the tree cannot see it
use-computer type --text "hello" --use staging
use-computer key ctrl+s --use staging
use-computer screenshot --use laptop                    # writes a file, returns its path

# a batch runs over one connection -- the default command, so `batch` may be omitted
echo '[
  {"action":"focus","role":"text","name":"Destinatario"},
  {"action":"type","text":"mario@example.com"},
  {"action":"click","role":"button","name":"Invia"},
  {"action":"tree"}
]' | use-computer - --use laptop

An action names its target by coordinate or by element, never both. A selector that matches nothing comes back with a screenshot -- the signal to switch to vision. A selector that matches several comes back with the candidates, because two buttons named "OK" in two dialogs is the ordinary case and picking one silently fails a hundred runs later.

stdout is one JSON object per run; every diagnostic goes to stderr. Exit codes: 0 success, 1 failure, 2 bad usage.

Screenshots are files, never bytes in the JSON. --verify writes the screen it captured after the action and reports the path, so a verified action does not need a screenshot call after it.

Three problems it solves

• Coordinate spaces. A screenshot on a HiDPI display is larger than the space the OS clicks in. Every coordinate carries its space, use-computer scales between them, and it refuses to guess when the ratio is unknown.
• Setup cost. Opening a VNC connection dominates a single action, so one run performs a batch of actions over one connection.
• Blind actuation. A click that lands on nothing looks exactly like a click that worked, so --verify compares the screen before and after and reports whether it changed -- and an action that went through the accessibility API reports the element it actually operated.

Configure

use-computer config init                                  # asks, then proves it works
use-computer config init --backend vnc --host 10.0.0.5    # doesn't ask
use-computer config init --backend local --allow-local

config init writes the file below, then opens the backend it just configured and reports the screen geometry and scale — so a coordinate space whose ratio cannot be derived surfaces at setup rather than at the first click that lands in the wrong place.

It writes .use-computer/config.toml at the project root (found by walking up, the way git finds its own):

default-profile = "laptop"
delay = 0.1

[profiles.laptop]
backend = "local"
allow-local = true

[profiles.staging]
backend = "vnc"
host = "10.0.0.5"
port = 5900

Secrets go in .use-computer/.env, which is not committed. use-computer config show prints every resolved value, the layer it came from and the variable that would override it.

The agent skill

Instructions for the calling agent ship inside the package and are installed from it, so they always match the installed version:

use-computer skill install --scope project

Documentation

This package is developed with SDD. The specs it implements live in product/ and system/ at the repository root.