Tasker

A desktop widget that plays and records Claude skills.

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Tasker holds two parts in one small window. The top part is a rolodex of skill cards with animated previews. The bottom part is a transport deck with four keys: undo, stop, record and play. The window floats above other windows. You drag the window. A keyboard shortcut shows and hides it.

Claude Cowork records a skill from a screen recording. Claude writes the skill to a folder with a SKILL.md file. Tasker reads those folders and gives the skills a physical control surface.

Screenshots

Light	Dark

Card turn	Record state

Features

• Rolodex of skills. One card for each skill. The card shows the name, the description and the source.
• Animated preview for each skill. Tasker plays GIF, MP4, WebM and static image files.
• Transport deck with four keys: undo, stop, record and play.
• Real 3D surface. Three.js builds the parts with lights, shadows and key travel.
• Light theme and dark theme. Tasker follows the system setting.
• Global shortcut. The default shortcut is Command+Shift+Space on macOS and Control+Shift+Space on Windows and Linux.
• Tray icon with a menu.
• File watcher. New skills appear without a restart.
• Run journal. Tasker writes each action to a file. The undo key acts on the last entry.
• Four adapters. You choose how the keys act on your system.
• No network calls at run time. No telemetry.

Status

Version 0.1.0. The table shows the state of each part.

Part	State
Rolodex, preview panel, transport deck	Works. The screenshots come from the application itself.
Skill discovery and file watcher	Works. Unit tests and an integration test cover both.
dry-run, command, cli adapters	Works. The integration test starts real programs and reads the journal file.
desktop adapter	The command builder has tests. Nobody tested the key sequence against the Claude desktop application. The default record sequence cmd+shift+r is a guess.
macOS package	Built with electron-builder and started.
Windows package, Linux package	The build files exist. Nobody ran these builds yet.
Code signing, notarization	Not set up. The workflow reads the secrets when you add them.
confirmBeforeRun	Reserved. The field does nothing today.
assets/demo-skills	Sample data. A script draws these recordings. They are not recordings of real software.

Set adapter.keys.record to the sequence that your version of the Claude desktop application uses.

Install

Download an installer from the releases page.

Platform	File
macOS	Tasker-<version>-arm64.dmg or Tasker-<version>-x64.dmg
Windows	Tasker-<version>-x64-setup.exe
Linux	Tasker-<version>-x86_64.AppImage, .deb or .rpm

The macOS and Windows builds are not signed yet. macOS shows a warning for an unsigned application. Open the application from the context menu of Finder to accept it.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/thyfriendlyfox/tasker.git && cd tasker && pnpm install && pnpm run dev

Node 20.19 or later and pnpm 11 or later are required. Run corepack enable pnpm to install pnpm.

Use

Mouse

Action	Result
Click a key	Tasker runs the action of the key.
Click the front card	Tasker plays the skill of the card.
Click a card behind the front card	The rolodex turns to that card.
Double click a card	The file manager opens the skill folder.
Scroll over the rolodex	The rolodex turns.
Drag the grip or the window border	The window moves.

Keyboard

Key	Result
Right or Down	Turn to the next card.
Left or Up	Turn to the previous card.
Enter or Space	Play the skill.
R	Record a skill.
S	Stop the action.
U or Backspace	Undo the last run.
Command/Control + Z	Undo the last run.
Command/Control + O	Open the skill folder.
Escape	Hide the window.
Command/Control + W	Hide the window.

The global shortcut shows and hides the window from any application. Set the shortcut in the configuration file.

Skills

A skill is one folder with a SKILL.md file. Tasker reads the YAML frontmatter of that file.

---
name: Excel To QuickBooks
description: Copies Excel rows into QuickBooks as receipts.
tags: [finance, data entry]
preview: preview.gif
---

# Excel To QuickBooks

1. Open the source file.
2. Read each row.
3. Open QuickBooks.
4. Enter the row values.

Field	Use
name	Card title. The folder name is the default.
description	Card text.
tags	Card metadata.
preview	Preview file in the skill folder.
previewZoom	Zoom of the preview, from 1 to 6. The default follows the size.
previewFollow	Set the value to false to hold the preview at the center.
previewLoop	pingpong or forward. The default is pingpong.

Tasker also finds a preview file without the preview field. The file name must start with preview, demo, recording or thumbnail.

Preview crop

A screen recording is wide. The preview panel is small and upright. Tasker therefore shows one part of the recording.

1. Tasker finds the strongest point of change in each frame. That point is the pointer.
2. Tasker smooths the path of that point.
3. Tasker cuts an upright frame around the point and fills the panel with it.

The result is a zoomed recording that follows the pointer. Set previewFollow: false to hold the crop at the center of the screen.

Tasker plays the frames forward, then backward. The pointer therefore returns to the start of the recording, and the loop holds no jump. Set previewLoop: forward for a plain loop.

Tasker reads these folders by default:

Platform	Folders
macOS	~/.claude/skills, ~/.claude/plugins, ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/skills
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills, %USERPROFILE%\.claude\plugins, %APPDATA%\Claude\skills
Linux	~/.claude/skills, ~/.claude/plugins, ~/.config/Claude/skills

Add more folders with the skillRoots field of the configuration file.

Adapters

The Claude desktop application has no public control interface. Tasker therefore sends each transport action through an adapter. You select the adapter in the configuration file.

Adapter	Action	Note
dry-run	Writes the action to the journal.	This adapter is the default. Tasker never acts before you configure it.
command	Starts a program that you define for each key.	This adapter gives full control.
cli	Sends a prompt to the claude command line interface.	The play key and the undo key work.
desktop	Sends a key sequence to the Claude desktop application.	macOS needs accessibility permission. Linux needs xdotool.

Tasker starts each program directly. No shell reads the arguments.

Read docs/ADAPTERS.md for the full description.

Configuration

The configuration file is JSON. Open the file from the tray menu.

Platform	Path
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/Tasker/config.json
Windows	%APPDATA%\Tasker\config.json
Linux	~/.config/Tasker/config.json

{
  "skillRoots": ["/Users/me/.claude/skills"],
  "shortcut": "Command+Shift+Space",
  "theme": "system",
  "window": { "width": 460, "height": 320, "alwaysOnTop": true, "hideOnBlur": false },
  "adapter": {
    "id": "command",
    "commands": {
      "play": { "program": "claude", "args": ["-p", "Use the ${skillName} skill."] },
      "record": { "program": "open", "args": ["-a", "Claude"] }
    }
  }
}

Read docs/CONFIGURATION.md for each field.

Use cases

Case	Record	Play
Accounts payable	Copy one week of Excel rows into QuickBooks as receipts.	Run the same import each Monday.
Invoice export	Export open invoices to a dated folder.	Repeat the export at the end of each month.
Lead handoff	Move a new form entry into the CRM with the correct owner.	Run the move for each new lead.
Ticket triage	Sort new tickets by product area and priority.	Clear the queue each morning.
Expense reports	Read receipt images and fill the expense form.	Process a folder of receipts in one run.
Onboarding	Create the accounts of a new colleague in four systems.	Repeat the steps for the next colleague.
Data migration	Move records from an old tool to a new tool.	Run the migration for each batch.
Report assembly	Collect numbers from three dashboards into one document.	Rebuild the report each week.
Quality checks	Compare a shipment list against the order system.	Check each shipment file.
Demonstration	Record a product walkthrough one time.	Replay the walkthrough for each customer call.

The rolodex holds the skills of a whole team. One card and four keys replace a long prompt.

Development

pnpm install
pnpm run dev

Command	Result
pnpm run dev	Start the application with hot reload.
pnpm run build	Check the types and build to out/.
pnpm test	Run the unit tests.
pnpm run test:integration	Run the run path in Electron against real processes.
pnpm run lint	Run ESLint.
pnpm run typecheck	Run the TypeScript compiler.
pnpm run assets	Rebuild the icons, the demo skills, the models, the screenshots and the OG image.
pnpm run pack	Build an unpacked application in release/.
pnpm run dist	Build the installers for the current platform.

The project uses pnpm. The file pnpm-workspace.yaml allows the install scripts of electron and esbuild. Both packages download a platform binary. The file .npmrc sets node-linker=hoisted because electron-builder needs a flat module folder.

Read docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the structure of the code.

Assets

pnpm run assets builds every asset from code. No binary source file is edited by hand.

Output	Source
build/icon.icns, build/icon.ico, build/icons/	scripts/make-icons.mjs
assets/demo-skills/	scripts/make-demo-previews.mjs
assets/models/*.glb	scripts/export-models.mjs
assets/screenshots/, assets/og-image.png	scripts/capture.mjs

The screenshots come from the real application through webContents.capturePage(). The 3D models use the same shapes as the application. Open the models in any glTF viewer.

The folder assets/logos holds the platform marks for the OG image. Each mark belongs to its owner. The OG image shows the marks to name the supported systems.

Security and privacy

• Tasker makes no network call at run time.
• Tasker collects no data.
• The renderer runs with contextIsolation, sandbox and a content security policy.
• The preload bridge exposes a fixed list of functions.
• The asset protocol serves files from the skill folders only.
• Tasker starts a program only after you configure an adapter.

Report a security problem through SECURITY.md.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.