Interceptor

Interceptor

Use this as the routing skill before loading a surface-specific skill.

Surface Decision

The User Is On This Mac Too

Assume the person is working on this Mac while you work. Stay in the background at all costs. Take focus (the frontmost app, the focused window, or the tab showing in a window the user is using) only when the action truly cannot be done any other way. Never take it to make your own work easier, and never to test something.

Before any focus-moving verb, go down this list and stop at the first rung that works:

1. A background verb. Synthetic browser input, AX refs, --app / --pid / --window on interceptor macos input, and --trusted browser input (a full install delivers it to an unfocused window).
2. interceptor tab keepalive <id> for a page that will not render while hidden.
3. Your own window. interceptor window new [url] moves your tab group into its own background window. Tabs there paint, play media, and take trusted clicks, and interceptor tab switch <id> there changes only that window. Never switch tabs in a window the user is working in.
4. Only then a focus move. Say so first, keep it to one fast batch, and put back the frontmost app, the active tab, and the cursor.

Known foreground-only cases: launching an app that is not running (it can come forward even from a background launch, and an app updater can raise a password prompt), and a click or drag on a minimized window or hidden app.

Core Rules

• Browser commands operate inside the cyan interceptor tab group. Do not use --any-tab unless the user explicitly authorizes acting outside that group.
• Solo browser work in a supported agent shell gets a soft per-session group automatically. For concurrent lanes, set a unique INTERCEPTOR_SESSION_ID or pass a unique --group <label> to each lane. Explicit groups are hard-scoped by default unless --any-tab is authorized. Close named groups with interceptor group close <label> when done; the idle timer is based on tab activity, so metadata polls do not keep a group alive.
• interceptor open <url>, interceptor tab new <url>, and interceptor window new [url] create background tabs and windows by default. Only open --activate, tab new --activate, window new --activate, tab switch <id>, and window focus <id> intentionally move browser focus.
• A page that will not render while hidden is not a reason to switch tabs in the user's window. interceptor tab keepalive <id> makes it read as visible and run its animation frames in place. A page that needs a real paint (video playback, a virtualized grid that measures itself) goes in your own window: interceptor window new <url>.
• A trusted click does not need a tab switch or a focused window: interceptor click <ref> --trusted reaches the active tab of any window that is not minimized. If your tab is not the active tab of its window, interceptor window new then tab switch <id> inside that window.
• The macOS surface is background-first by default. Only interceptor macos app activate <app> and interceptor macos open <app> --activate intentionally move focus.
• If multiple browser profiles are connected, run interceptor contexts and pass --context <id>.
• Safari registers as safari; use interceptor --context safari <verb> for page content and interceptor macos for Safari chrome or native fallbacks.
• Prefer compound commands (open, read, act, inspect) and structured reads before screenshots.
• The zero-CDP browser rule governs the user's real Chrome/Brave/Safari web session. For owned Electron apps, interceptor macos cdp and interceptor macos cdp app are intentional app-control surfaces.
• For native app runtime internals, use interceptor macos runtime after checking interceptor status; public Full installs may require operator-supplied runtime agent dylibs/signing identity before macos runtime enable.
• If the extension behaves stale after a package update, run interceptor reload --context <id>: an unpacked copy picks up the installed files; a Chrome Web Store copy only asks the store for an update and keeps its version until the store publishes the new one. interceptor contexts --verbose shows which copy (store or unpacked) and version each context runs.
• interceptor daemon stop and interceptor skills unadopt are install/maintenance verbs. The daemon is shared by every agent on the machine — never stop it during normal automation; the next browser command respawns it, but every connected agent's in-flight work is dropped.

Load A Surface Skill

• Load interceptor-browser for browser page content, network, tabs, scene graphs, and browser screenshots.
• Load interceptor-macos for native apps, browser chrome, OS dialogs, window capture, AX trees, Apple Events, Electron app CDP/app attach, and in-process native agent control.
• Load interceptor-ios for an owned, unlocked, Developer-Mode iPhone. Disconnected unlock cannot bootstrap its runner.
• Load interceptor-research for deep web research — investigating a topic across many sources with a planner loop, an on-disk source ledger, and adversarial verification (methodology layered on the browser surface). Pull the playbook any time with interceptor research.