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EYHN / appshots

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macOS menu bar app for capturing appshots with screenshots and accessibility state

18
1
85% credibility
Found May 25, 2026 at 19 stars -- GitGems finds repos before they trend. Get early access to the next one.
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AI Analysis
Swift
AI Summary

Appshots is a macOS menu bar app that captures screenshots and app state from the frontmost window, copying a special reference to the clipboard so AI coding assistants like Claude Code can see what you're working on.

How It Works

1
💡 Discover Appshots

You hear about a tool that helps AI assistants see what's on your screen, making them much smarter at helping you code.

2
⬇️ Install the App

You download and install Appshots on your Mac, which appears as a small camera icon in your menu bar.

3
🔑 Grant Permissions

The app asks for permission to read your screen and understand app windows, which you approve so it can capture context.

4
📸 Capture Your App

You press both Option keys at once, and Appshots instantly captures your frontmost app's screenshot and text state with a smooth animation.

5
📋 Reference Copied

A special reference is automatically copied to your clipboard, ready to paste into your AI assistant conversation.

🤖 AI Understands Your Context

You paste the reference to your AI coding assistant, and it can now see exactly what you're working on, giving much more helpful suggestions.

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Star Growth

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AI-Generated Review

What is appshots?

Appshots is a lightweight macOS menu bar app that captures screenshots paired with accessibility state from whatever app you have in focus. When you trigger a capture, it takes a screenshot of the frontmost window, extracts the accessibility tree via KWWKComputerUseCore, and copies a markup reference to your clipboard in the format `[app-shots image="..." content="..."]`. You can trigger captures with a hotkey (both Option keys, both Command keys, or both Shift keys pressed simultaneously) or through the menu bar popover. The app requires Accessibility and Screen Recording permissions to read app state and capture windows.

Why is it gaining traction?

The hook here is AI-assisted development. Appshots exists specifically to feed visual and structural context to coding agents like Claude Code, letting them see exactly what you see on screen. Unlike a plain screenshot, you get the accessibility tree with element hierarchy and window metadata. The markup format is designed to be pasted directly into prompts. It's a single-purpose tool with a narrow but growing use case: developers who want their AI pair programmer to understand the app they're working on without manual description.

Who should use this?

Developers building macOS apps who use AI coding assistants and want to share UI context automatically. If you're debugging layout issues, testing accessibility, or describing UI bugs to an agent, appshots eliminates the screenshot-plus-explanation step. Not useful unless you're actively using an AI tool that can parse the markup format.

Verdict

This is a niche tool for a specific workflow, but it executes cleanly. The Swift implementation is straightforward, Sparkle handles updates, and the hotkey detection works at the device level. At 18 stars, it's early and unproven at scale. The credibility score of 0.85% reflects that maturity. Try it if you're deep in the AI-assisted macOS dev loop; skip it otherwise.

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