Control the desktop (mouse, keyboard, screen, windows, apps) cross-platform via ATR. Take screenshots, click at coordinates, type text, drag, manage windows, launch and quit apps. Includes 'atr computer ask' — an in-process LLM agent that takes a natural-language instruction and drives the desktop end-to-end. Use for native UI testing, desktop automation, multi-monitor flows, or anything outside the browser. Pairs with atr-browser for combined web + desktop workflows.
Control the desktop (mouse, keyboard, screen, windows, apps) cross-platform via ATR. Take screenshots, click at coordinates, type text, drag, manage windows, launch and quit apps. Includes 'atr computer ask' — an in-process LLM agent that takes a natural-language instruction and drives the desktop end-to-end. Use for native UI testing, desktop automation, multi-monitor flows, or anything outside the browser. Pairs with atr-browser for combined web + desktop workflows.
allowed-tools
Bash(atr computer:*)
Companion skill — atr-browser controls Chromium for any in-page operation (navigate, click on web elements, fill forms, scrape). Load both when:
You need to drag a file from the OS file manager into a browser upload zone.
Authentication or a native dialog (1Password, system file picker) is part of the flow.
You're delegating a high-level task that touches both — atr computer ask "..." can shell out to atr browser ... and vice versa.
Computer daemon listens on port 9334; browser daemon on 9333. Both can run simultaneously.
ATR Desktop Computer-Use Skill
This skill provides cross-platform desktop control through ATR's computer daemon. Mouse, keyboard, screen capture, window management, app launch, and an in-process LLM agent (atr computer ask) — all driven from the same atr CLI that powers atr-browser.
The daemon enforces a configurable safety countdown before every action so the user can intervene with Ctrl+C. Read-only operations (screenshot, position, list windows) skip the countdown.
When the daemon is started without --no-gui it also surfaces the countdown in a small native overlay so MCP/Claude-Code clients (which don't see the daemon's terminal) can still interrupt visually. On Linux the overlay uses zenity (full Cancel button — clicking it aborts the action with ErrAborted); when only notify-send is available it falls back to a one-shot desktop notification (visual only — abort still works via Ctrl+C in the daemon terminal). On macOS it uses osascript display notification; on Windows it uses a PowerShell toast. If no backend can initialize, the daemon logs a warning and continues with terminal-only countdown.
Linux: X11 only in v1. Wayland is not supported yet.
GUI overlay: install zenity for an abortable dialog (apt install zenity); fall back to libnotify-bin for visual-only notifications.
Getting Started
Step 1: Check status and start if needed
atr computer status
If not running:
atr computer start # default: per-request 3s countdown
atr computer start --countdown-mode per-app # countdown only on first action per app
atr computer start --countdown-mode off # no countdown (trusted batch runs)
atr computer start --countdown 1 # 1-second countdown
For browser-only workflows, see the atr-browser skill. For combined workflows, both daemons can run simultaneously on different ports (browser: 9333, computer: 9334).
Asking the agent (atr computer ask)
Instead of issuing one command at a time, you can describe a desktop task in plain language and let an agent loop drive the screenshots, clicks, and keystrokes:
atr computer ask "open xclock and tell me what time it shows"
atr computer ask "list the open windows that contain 'chrome' in the title"
atr computer ask --max-steps 30 --timeout 10m "open the GNOME calculator and compute 17 * 23"
The agent uses the LLM backend configured for ATR (backend: gemini-api | vertex-ai | claude-cli in ~/.atr/config.yaml). Default model aliases:
Tier
Model
flash
gemini-3.1-flash-preview
pro
gemini-3.2-pro-preview
Override per-run with the global --model flag (e.g. atr --model pro computer ask "..."). With backend: claude-cli, the model flag is ignored and Claude CLI is invoked as a subprocess.
Tools the agent can call (curated subset):
Perception: computer_screenshot (image fed back to the LLM), computer_displays, computer_active_window, computer_list_windows, computer_position
The agent cannot type passwords — if a sudo / polkit prompt appears, it stops and reports the blocker.
Each screenshot sent to the LLM costs vision tokens; with --model pro a 10-step task is measurable spend.
The countdown gate inherits whatever the daemon was started with. For ask runs you usually want atr computer start --countdown-mode per-app so the first action against an app prompts and subsequent ones auto-approve.
Coordinates and multi-monitor
ATR uses root coordinates as the public API for clicks, moves, drags, and window positions. Root coords have a single bounding-box origin at (0, 0) covering all monitors — every visible coordinate is non-negative, matching xrandr and the X11 root window. atr computer --json window list and atr computer displays both return root coords.
For interactive use it's often easier to think in display-local pixels. Every mouse command accepts --display N, which interprets x and y as pixels relative to that display's top-left:
# Display 0 is primary (whose root origin may NOT be (0, 0) on multi-monitor setups)
atr computer click --display 0 100 200 # display-local
atr computer click 1540 200 # root coords (equivalent on a setup where primary is at root (1440, 0))
atr computer screenshot --region X,Y,W,H is always display-local within the chosen --display.
A common workflow:
atr computer displays # see each display's root bounds
atr computer --json window list # find a window's root bounds
atr computer screenshot --display 0 --region X,Y,W,H # crop using display-local pixels
atr computer click --display 0 X Y # click the spot you cropped
Tips
Use atr computer --json window list to enumerate windows, then operate on a specific ID for stability.
For Linux, the per-app cache key is WM_CLASS (window class), so all Chrome windows share one approval.
Screenshots return PNG bytes; set --output to a local path the user expects.
For multi-monitor setups: prefer --display N with display-local pixels for new code; reach for absolute root coords only when relaying values from window list.
