Adrafinil

Adrafinil

Mac wake-lock for agent users

WHO USES ITMac users who leave agents working overnight · People who carry a laptop in a bag · Developers running long builds or deploys

Install to use

Keeps a Mac awake only while a coding agent works, lid closed or not; normal sleep after.

★ 475▲ 124 HNAs of 09-16 21:00 UTC

475 stars · checked on GitHub 09-15 19:34 UTC GitHub check 30 h late · no 7-day star increase observed (GH Archive) (as of 09-16 21:00 UTC) · 124 Show HN points observed 09-13 15:42 UTC

CROSS-SIGNAL Show HN + GitHub BACK CATALOG

Three states of the Adrafinil menu bar popover: awake while an agent works (Keep awake / Let it sleep controls), idle with normal sleep, and a hold duration picker from 15 minutes to indefinite

TESIGN TAKE

A small utility that reframes the problem from 'always awake' to 'awake only while there is work', notable for isolating the root-level sleep control in a separate helper that exposes a single setSleepBlocked call. It needs macOS 26.4 or later.

AT A GLANCE

WHY IT MATTERS

Leave caffeinate or Amphetamine on for an overnight agent and the Mac stays awake long after the work ends; Adrafinil has agent hooks call acquire when a turn starts and release when it stops, blocking sleep (including lid-closed clamshell sleep) only while work is actually running, and returning to normal sleep the moment the last session lets go. One click installs hooks for nine agents (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Aider, Hermes, OpenCode, Cline, Pi), the CLI round-trips in under 50 ms so it never stalls an agent, and a thermal cutout releases every hold if temperature crosses a threshold with the lid closed.

BUILD FROM THIS

Wrap any tool that has hooks with `adrafinil acquire` / `release`, bracket hookless commands in the shell, or place a timed hold with `adrafinil hold --for 2h`. Through the bundled MCP tool (`adrafinil mcp`) an agent can ask to stay awake for a long build or deploy that outlives its reply.

WHO IT'S FOR

Mac users who leave agents working overnight: awake only while the agent works, even with the lid closed, then normal sleep
People who carry a laptop in a bag: a thermal cutout, a lid-close chime and a summary when you reopen
Developers running long builds or deploys: the agent requests a timed hold over MCP or the CLI

START IN 5 MINUTES

# brew install --cask adrafinil
# Or open the signed, notarized DMG from https://github.com/kageroumado/adrafinil/releases/latest and drag Adrafinil to Applications (the first launch asks for admin rights once)
# Wire agent hooks from the in-app installer with one click, or via the CLI: adrafinil install-hooks

CAVEATS

MIT licence.
Requires macOS Tahoe 26.4 or later (the author tests only on 26.4; a backport fork for macOS 15 Sequoia is maintained by someone else). The standard install needs admin rights — lid-closed sleep is overridden by a root helper using `pmset disablesleep`.
Custom agents without hooks are not auto-detected, so pair every acquire with a release; the idle-release timeout and per-hold time limits are the safety net.

RECEIPT

SIMILAR TOOLS

Up to five from AI by ★ total: edited entries first, then repository cards; this entry is highlighted. Drawn from the same stored snapshot as the rankings — a comparison, not a recommendation. As of 09-16 21:00 UTC

NAME	★ TOTAL	▲ 7d	LICENSE	PLATFORM	LAST PUSH
eccSkills, memory and security for agents	★ 259k	▲ +832	MITpermissive	windows · macos · linux · cli	2026-09-15
Hermes AgentSelf-improving personal agent	★ 246k	▲ +375	MITpermissive	linux · macos · windows · android · cli	2026-09-15
DeepSeek HarnessPlugin agent harness for developers	★ 225k	▲ +1,356	MITpermissive	web · cli	2026-09-15
AdrafinilMac wake-lock for agent usersTHIS ENTRY	★ 475	—	MITpermissive	macos	2026-08-24
mattpocock/skillsCARD	★ 261k	▲ +872	MITpermissive	—	2026-09-04