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Hotkey & popup

Cue runs in your menu bar (macOS) or system tray (Windows). The primary way to use it is a single global hotkey.

The trigger

Platform Hotkey Notes
macOS Shift + Space Works in any app, in any Space, full-screen included. Implemented via CGEventTap (listen-only) so it never swallows the keystroke from the foreground app.
Windows Alt + ~ Works in any app, in any virtual desktop. Implemented via pynput.GlobalHotKeys.

When you press the hotkey, Cue:

  1. Takes a screenshot of the active screen.
  2. Captures the currently selected text (if any) by simulating Cmd+C (macOS) or Ctrl+C (Windows) and reading the clipboard.
  3. Builds a prompt from: that screenshot, the selected text, the last few seconds of context (clicks + keyframes when streaming is enabled), and your memory.md profile.
  4. Sends it to Claude (Opus by default) and streams the response into a popup.

The hotkey is registered once at app launch. If it doesn't fire, re-check the Accessibility / Input Monitoring permission.

The popup

The popup is a small floating window pinned near the top of the screen.

It shows three suggestions — Claude's best guesses for what you might want to do next given what's currently on screen — and a free- text input for typing your own intent.

Three ways to act

  • Click a suggestion — Cue runs the suggested action (e.g. drafting a reply, summarising a document, opening a tool).
  • Type your own intent — write what you want and hit Enter; Cue treats your text as the user goal and plans accordingly.
  • Dismiss — press Esc (macOS) or click outside the popup (Windows). Nothing is saved to memory; the popup just closes.

Selected-text capture

If you have text highlighted at the moment you press the hotkey, Cue includes it in the prompt as authoritative content. A safety note is appended to the prompt so the model treats it as data, not instructions — even if the highlighted text says "ignore previous instructions and …", the suggestion path will not act on it.

Rolling context

When streaming mode is on (Settings → General → Enable Streaming), Cue keeps a 5-second buffer of mini-screenshots taken near each mouse click. The hotkey path includes the last few of those, so Claude sees what you were doing just before you triggered the popup, not just the frozen moment.

If streaming is off, the hotkey still works — Cue just sends the single screenshot taken at trigger time.

Privacy interactions

  • If Cue is currently in privacy pause, the hotkey is a no-op. The popup does not open and no screenshot is sent.
  • If the focused field is a password field at the moment of the hotkey press, Cue auto-pauses before the screenshot is taken. See Privacy controls.