Computer Use Permissions

By symptom.

"Permission required" card on every action

Likely cause	Action
Accessibility not granted	System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → enable Ghast AI
Accessibility granted to an old build of Ghast	Remove old Ghast from the list and re-add the current Applications copy
App copied or relocated after granting	macOS Accessibility tracks by exact file location; re-add at the new path

Actions silently do nothing

Likely cause	Action
Target app is in the daemon hard blocklist	Cannot be overridden via UI. If the action is genuinely needed, raise with maintainers.
Approval not granted for this action category on this app	Look for the approval modal — it may have appeared on another desktop
Daemon crashed	Quit Ghast fully, relaunch

`skyshot` returns no pixels

Likely cause	Action
Screen Recording not granted	System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording → enable Ghast
App refuses recording (some protected apps)	AX tree still returned; pixel data is blocked at the OS level

AppleEvents prompt repeats every time

Likely cause	Action
You denied a previous prompt	System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation → grant Ghast control of the app
App bundle changed	Re-grant; macOS tracks the per-app permission by bundle identifier

Likely cause	Action
Action category was already Allow Always	Working as designed — check Settings → Computer Use → Approved Apps
Read-only action	Read actions skip the gate by design
Modal queued behind another window	Bring Ghast to front (Cmd-Tab)

"Approval denied" repeatedly

Likely cause	Action
Earlier deny is cached briefly	Re-trigger the action; the gate re-prompts
App in the daemon blocklist	Cannot proceed via UI

Strict Approval setting unexpectedly prompts every time

Likely cause	Action
Strict Approval is on	This is intended — Allow Always behaves like Allow Once. Disable in Settings if you don't want this.

Picture-in-Picture monitor stays blank

Likely cause	Action
No action is currently running	PIP only shows during active daemon operations
Screen Recording not granted	Same as above for `skyshot`