Lockpaw

One hotkey covers your screen. One hotkey uncovers it. Everything keeps running.
No sleep. No display disconnect. No process interruption. The screen glows when your agent needs you.

You could set up Amphetamine, configure Hot Corners, tweak energy settings, and adjust your screen saver. Or you could press ⌘⇧L.

Features

• ⌨️ One hotkey — lock and unlock with ⌘⇧L (customizable)
• 🔒 Touch ID unlock — or password fallback, just like your Mac
• 🖥️ Every screen covered — all displays, auto-detects new monitors
• 🤖 Agents keep running — AI coding tools, builds, downloads, SSH sessions
• 🔔 Agent alerts — the locked screen glows when Claude Code, Codex, or Gemini needs you
• 😴 Prevents sleep — IOKit assertion keeps your Mac awake while locked
• 📦 10 MB — native Swift, no Electron
• 🚫 No analytics — no data leaves your Mac, no accounts; the only network call is the signed update check
• 🐕🐈 Dog or cat mode — choose the metallic origami dog or cat for the lock screen
• ⚙️ Native Settings — lock screen, shortcuts, updates, permissions, and about in one quiet window

Usage

Agent alerts

Lock your screen and walk away — when your AI agent pauses for permission or finishes,
the locked screen glows from across the room and a notification fires. You stay
covered (and private) until you unlock. The glow is always silent; turn on a sound in
Settings → General if you want one (off by default for shared offices).

Easiest: open Settings → General → Connect your agent and click your agent —
done. Prefer the terminal? Lockpaw ships a tiny lockpaw command-line tool
(Lockpaw.app/Contents/SharedSupport/lockpaw); one command wires everything up,
including installing itself into ~/.local/bin (add --print to just see the snippet):

The hooks reference ~/.local/bin/lockpaw by path, so they work no matter what's on
your PATH, and keep working when the app moves or updates. Re-running install-hook
upgrades older hook entries in place; existing foreign hooks are never clobbered, and
a .bak backup is saved next to any config it touches. lockpaw install-cli is still
there if you just want the command on your PATH.

Under the hood, lockpaw ping posts a local notification that Lockpaw listens for — it
never launches the app if it isn't already running.

Install

Download

Grab the latest signed & notarized DMG from getlockpaw.com or GitHub Releases.

Homebrew

brew tap sorkila/lockpaw
brew install --cask lockpaw

Build from source

brew install xcodegen
git clone https://github.com/sorkila/lockpaw.git
cd lockpaw
xcodegen generate
xcodebuild -scheme Lockpaw -configuration Release build

On first launch, grant Accessibility when prompted. The Lockpaw icon appears in your menu bar.

Design

The lock screen is intentionally minimal. Near-black canvas. Subtle radial glow. One element at a time.

Calm by default — the screen opens with your chosen mascot, your message, and a quiet elapsed timer; the pointer slips away after a moment of stillness. The fallback auth button waits quietly at the bottom — always there, never loud. When an agent pings, the screen breathes two slow waves of teal, then keeps a soft "your agent needs you" hint until you return.

Mascots — a metallic origami dog or cat rendered in teal and amber, floating in a pool of light. Slow 12-second breathing cycle. On successful unlock, the mascot scales up with a teal bloom and fades away.

Typography — system San Francisco throughout. Regular weight message at 55% white. Monospaced timer at 35%. The screen whispers.

Auth button — glass material effect with a subtle border. Visible enough to be tappable, quiet enough to stay out of the way.

Under the hood

Hotkey — CGEvent.tapCreate with .listenOnly on a dedicated background thread. Bypasses the LSUIElement activation issue that affects Carbon hotkeys in menu bar apps. Requires Accessibility permission.

Input blocking — separate CGEventTap intercepts all keyboard, scroll, and tablet events system-wide while locked. Mouse events pass through to the overlay (SwiftUI buttons need clicks). If macOS disables the tap, it re-enables synchronously in the callback.

Window level — CGShieldingWindowLevel(), the highest level in the system. Above Spotlight, Notification Center, screen savers, everything.

Multi-display — one overlay window per screen, recreated on hot-plug.

State machine — LockState enum with validated transitions. Every transitionTo() call is checked. State is verified again after async authentication returns.

Sleep prevention — IOPMAssertion keeps the Mac awake while locked.

Auth — LAContext.evaluatePolicy(.deviceOwnerAuthentication) for Touch ID with password fallback. Rate-limited: 30s cooldown after 3 failed attempts.

Auto-updates — Sparkle framework checks for updates automatically. Appcast hosted at getlockpaw.com.

Security model

Lockpaw is a visual privacy tool, not a security boundary.

It guards against the accidental — a colleague, a cat, your own muscle memory while agents run. Not the intentional.

• Overlay at highest system window level
• Event tap blocks all keyboard/scroll input
• Fast User Switching cancels auth, keeps lock active
• Accessibility revocation detected and handled (force unlock with warning)
• URL scheme rate-limited (100ms debounce)
• Debug escape hatch compile-gated (#if DEBUG)
• State machine validates every transition
• Hotkey conflict detection against system shortcuts

• Prevent pkill Lockpaw
• Block synthetic events (AppleScript, Accessibility API)
• Survive kernel-level access
• Protect against screen recording during overlay fade-in

For real security: Ctrl+Cmd+Q.

URL scheme

lockpaw://lock              Lock the screen
lockpaw://unlock            Unlock with Touch ID
lockpaw://unlock-password   Unlock with password
lockpaw://toggle            Toggle lock state

Architecture

Lockpaw/
├─ LockpawApp                     Entry, MenuBarExtra, AppDelegate, onboarding
├─ Controllers/
│  ├─ LockController              State machine, lock/unlock orchestration
│  ├─ Authenticator               LAContext · Touch ID · password fallback
│  ├─ InputBlocker                CGEventTap · keyboard/scroll blocking
│  ├─ HotkeyManager              CGEventTap · global hotkey detection
│  ├─ OverlayWindowManager       NSWindow · multi-display · shielding level
│  ├─ SleepPreventer             IOKit · idle sleep assertion
│  └─ AgentNotifier              UNUserNotificationCenter · agent-ping notifications
├─ Models/
│  ├─ LockState                  .unlocked → .locking → .locked → .unlocking
│  ├─ HotkeyConfig               Centralized hotkey UserDefaults access
│  ├─ PingDecision               Pure agent-ping decision (pulse/notify/sound)
│  └─ Mascot                     Dog/cat lock screen preference
├─ Views/
│  ├─ LockScreenView             Dog/cat mascot · agent-ping glow · fallback auth
│  ├─ AmbientScreenView          Secondary display gradient animation
│  ├─ MenuBarView                Dropdown · lock/unlock/quit
│  ├─ SettingsView               Native tabs · hotkey recorder · updates
│  └─ OnboardingView             5-step wizard · hotkey · accessibility · agent alerts
├─ Utilities/
│  ├─ Constants                  Timing, animations, formatting
│  ├─ Notifications              All Notification.Name in one place
│  └─ AccessibilityChecker       AXIsProcessTrusted + System Settings
└─ Resources/
   └─ Assets                     App icon, mascot, menu bar icon, colors

CI

Pushes to main and PRs run build + 50 unit tests via GitHub Actions. Tagged releases (v*) build, sign, notarize, and create GitHub Releases with the DMG attached.

_{getlockpaw.com}