vibedout

Lookout · v0.1.1

Give your AI assistant eyes.

A screenshot shows an assistant what is on your screen. Lookout shows it what is on your desk — a circuit board, a printed page, a device with no API, a second monitor that isn't this computer.

Download Source 
$ lookout look --out /tmp/view.jpg
focus 60 (sharpness 694)
/tmp/view.jpg  255022 bytes

Six seconds — most of it focusing. The agent reads the file.

The problem is focus, not resolution

Almost every camera you would reach for cannot focus close enough to be useful on a desk. And an assistant that isn't in the room cannot turn a focus ring.

Camera Minimum focus Adjustable from code Cost
USB webcam with autofocus ~10 cm Yes $30–130
Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3 10 cm Yes $25 + a Pi
GoPro HERO13 + Macro Lens Mod 11 cm No — a manual ring ~$440
GoPro HERO9–12 30–60 cm No $100–270
ESP32-CAM (OV2640 / OV3660) ~30 cm, glued No $18
Action cameras, smart glasses 1 m or more No $150–350

Lookout sweeps the lens, measures every frame and locks the sharpest — in about ten seconds, on a webcam you probably already own.

What it does

It focuses itself

lookout focus steps the lens through its whole range, scores each frame, and locks the best. It prints the curve, not just a number: one clean peak means it found focus, and a flat line means it did not — however good the maximum looks.

Any agent can use it

The installer drops a skill into your agent's skills folder. After that, "can you look at my desk and check the red wire" just works. No MCP server to configure, no API key.

Nothing to install first

No drivers, no ffmpeg, no runtime. Any UVC webcam — which is essentially all of them — appears the moment you plug it in.

The window is optional

It lives in the tray and closes to the tray, because the usual session has nobody watching. A viewfinder is there when you want to aim it.

What it can and cannot see

Measured on a 1080p webcam at desk distance. The skill tells your agent to say which side of this line an answer falls on, because a confident wrong answer about your wiring is worse than no answer.

Reliable

  • Is a cable plugged in, and where
  • Is an LED lit, and what colour
  • Is a component present or missing
  • Roughly what is where on a board
  • Large printed text
  • The general state of a workspace

Not reliable

  • Resistor colour bands
  • Tiny SMD markings
  • Small print
  • Anything behind something else
  • Anything at a steep angle
  • Anything in shadow

It is a camera in your room

Nothing is recorded

A frame exists because something asked for one. There is no background capture and no buffer — anything else would be a surveillance device with a friendly icon.

Nothing leaves the machine

The API binds to 127.0.0.1 and the app makes no outbound requests at all. There is nothing to audit because there is nothing there.

The skill sets limits

Agents are told not to photograph unprompted, and not to describe people who happen to be in frame.

Unplug it

That is still the strongest guarantee available, and no software should ask you to believe otherwise.

Download

Linux

v0.1.1

x86_64 · GNOME, KDE or any X11/Wayland desktop

.deb package 2.4 MB AppImage 75 MB CLI only 0.4 MB
  • .deb package — Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Pop!_OS
  • AppImage — Any distribution, nothing to install
  • CLI only — Just the command — the .deb already includes it

Windows

v0.1.1

Windows 10 1803 or newer · 64-bit

Installer 1.9 MB Portable 6.5 MB CLI only 0.3 MB
  • Installer — Per-user, no administrator prompt
  • Portable — The bare executable, run from anywhere
  • CLI only — Just the command, for scripting

macOS

Not yet built

Nothing here has run on a Mac. The capture library supports AVFoundation, so a build is plausible — but claiming support that has never executed is worse than not claiming it.

SHA-256 checksums

Verify with sha256sum on Linux or Get-FileHash in PowerShell. The builds are unsigned, so this is the only way to confirm you have the file that was actually published.

Lookout_0.1.1_amd64.deb 8322b18d9de75bb93c8bf961a8998edf76d4ceb1808f0c3b3a2b63bf6105e703
Lookout_0.1.1_amd64.AppImage 6553bece27028dcd52306a1ad493b95067b15822d0a71987feabbcc46bacfebd
lookout_0.1.1_linux-cli 1f03786c1f101bd4fff4f92032a7f2cbfadcfe1c30909f8ae93f7a430545e52a
Lookout_0.1.1_x64-setup.exe 87ab80f6e74b0ca6cfe21706b9a859ac3c9c6e24f8288cd3cb5a67bdb6fcaab9
Lookout_0.1.1_x64-portable.exe a47bdbfd97b18eb79c4b6b0a90f4366341befdd5e67f1c13f179417ac4796a54
lookout_0.1.1_x64-cli.exe f1db29a16b0e9d03f41b0421ae3fef741de22935e8421b187c533f9928d98b41

The builds are unsigned — a certificate costs more per year than this will ever make. Windows will warn you on first launch; the SHA-256 of every file is published above.