Give Claude Code a searchable text memory of your screen

A developer built a menu bar app that saves the text of your focused window to daily Markdown files Claude Code can read.

By Dramatize on Hacker News · Posted Aug 25, 2026 · Added Oct 16, 2026

Difficulty: BeginnerOur rating
Time to build: est. 10 minutesOur estimate
Monthly cost: Not reported
Revenue: Not reportedWe only show revenue the source states
Engagement: 62 HN points27 comments · fetched Oct 15, 2026

What they did

Dramatize built a macOS app that reads focused-window text every few seconds via the Accessibility API (no screenshots or OCR) and writes one Markdown file per day, with an AGENTS.md explaining the format.

How it went

You can ask Claude Code what you worked on Tuesday or have it build project memory.

Worth knowing

Captured text can include private chats or secrets; exclude sensitive apps.

Builder recipe

Our own starting point, written from the source. Adapt it to your setup.

Stack

ambient-context
Claude Code

Steps

Give the agent access only to the accounts it needs.
Write a clear brief with hard constraints.
Ask it to report back before anything irreversible.
Review the outcome and refine the brief.

Starter prompt

Read my notes folder for last week and summarize what I worked on each day, with open loops.

Open the repo ↗ (opens in new tab)

Read the original

Hacker News: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49429095 ↗ (opens in new tab) Aug 25, 2026 · 62 points, 27 comments (fetched 2026-10-15)

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