Quickstart

Arin is a daemon that draws on your screen. Your agent tells it where to point, and it points. It draws and it never clicks, so there is nothing it can do to your machine that you cannot see happening.

Four steps, about five minutes, most of it a compile.

1. Install it

brew install anistark/tools/arin

That builds from source, which takes a minute or two. Install covers why, and covers Nix, the dmg, and building it yourself.

2. Start the daemon

arin -d

macOS asks for Screen Recording the first time. Arin needs it to notice when content moves under a mark and to pick a colour that can be seen against whatever is underneath. It is the only permission Arin ever asks for, and it never asks for Accessibility.

Nothing is drawn until something asks. Leave it running.

This one stops with the terminal. arin service enable installs a launch agent instead, so Arin is there after a reboot without a window holding it open.

3. Point at something

In another terminal:

arin displays
arin point 412 88 --display 1 --label Save --hold

The orb flies to that spot and stays until you interrupt it. If you see it, everything below works.

arin clear

4. Give it to an agent

claude mcp add --scope user arin -- arin mcp

--scope user registers Arin for every session you start. Without it Claude Code files it under the current directory only, and asking for a mark from anywhere else does nothing.

Now ask your agent to explain something on screen. It can point at a position, highlight a region, annotate with a block of text, draw an arrow, and clear what it drew. MCP has the details, and CLI is the faster way to explore what the marks look like.

Not sure what to ask for? Prompts is a page of things to try.

What next

  • Prompts for what to actually ask an agent, and the phrasing that works.
  • Install for the other ways in, starting at login, and uninstalling.
  • CLI for every mark Arin can draw.
  • Resolvers if you want to say "the Submit button" instead of a coordinate. Off unless you turn it on, because it means letting Arin read your screen.
  • Building if you would rather work on it than use it.
Next → Install