Espresso

Never let your Mac fall asleep mid-workflow again.

Espresso keeps your Mac awake for exactly as long as you need — and stops the moment it's no longer needed. A live countdown ring drains across your Stream Deck key, turning orange then red as the session nears its end. Auto-Espresso ties directly into Claude Code and Codex so the session starts when your agent starts and stops the instant it finishes.

What it does

macOS will put your display to sleep and stop background processes if you walk away from a long-running AI task. Espresso prevents that without leaving a permanent keep-awake tool running in the background.

Tap the key to start a timed session. The ring drains in real time from your accent colour through orange to red. Tap again to stop. Double-tap to add an hour. Hold to reset.

For AI workflows, Auto-Espresso integrates with Claude Code and Codex at the runtime level — not by asking the model to do anything. Hooks fire on every tool call and send a heartbeat to the plugin. When the session ends, Espresso clears itself. Works over SSH to remote servers too.

Who it's for

If you run long AI workflows via Claude Code, Codex, or a custom agent and are tired of your Mac going dark or losing terminal sessions mid-task, this is for you. Also useful for video renders, uploads, builds, or focus sessions with a hard end time.

Key features

Live countdown ring — key border drains from full to empty, shifting from your accent colour to orange then red

Auto-Espresso — integrates with Claude Code, Codex, and any custom agent via a local HTTP API. Session starts and stops automatically with the agent. Works locally and over SSH

Process mode — stay awake until a named app exits. The tile shows ∞ and the session ends when Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, OBS, or a custom app closes

Native menu bar app — shows time remaining with timed sessions, process-watch mode, add time, and stop. Turns accent-coloured when active

Lite Rest — after 15 minutes of inactivity, sleeps the display and keyboard backlight while keeping the Mac awake for the AI task. Wakes on any keypress

Cursor nudge — moves the cursor 1 px on a configurable interval to prevent the screensaver and keep Slack from marking you away

No background services — runs caffeinate, a built-in macOS tool. Nothing runs when Stream Deck is not open

No permissions required — no sudo, no system extension, no accessibility permissions

Session survives restarts — timer picks up from where it left off if Stream Deck restarts

Requirements

macOS 10.15 or later

Stream Deck 7.1 or later

Any Stream Deck hardware with physical keys

Gestures

Tap — start session/stop session Double-tap — start + 1 hour / add 1 hour Hold (2 s) — start session/reset to configured duration

Notes

Auto-Espresso uses a local server on 127.0.0.1:59284, not reachable from outside your machine. A shared secret at ~/.espresso-secret authenticates every request

Sessions auto-expire 35 minutes after the last heartbeat. A configurable hard cap (default 4 hours) stops the session unconditionally

One-time purchase. No subscription required.

Part of the Microdash family of Stream Deck plugins

First release