realhands

computer-use-mcp ("realhands")

An MCP server that lets Claude operate your real computer the way a human does — moving the actual mouse, clicking, typing, and reading the actual screen.

Unlike OpenAI Operator, browser-use, or Playwright agents (which spin up a separate, isolated, logged-out Chrome), this drives the physical OS cursor and keyboard. So it works in your own Chrome with your own logged-in sessions — and in every other app — because it's just a human at the keyboard, as far as any website can tell.

Status: LIVE and battle-tested. Registered with Claude Code as the user-scope MCP realhands (tool mcp__realhands__computer) and ✓Connected since 2026-06-02. On 2026-06-09 it drove the user's real, logged-in Chrome through a complete Google Play Console deployment (app upload, release notes, submission) end-to-end.

The server is registered as realhands rather than computer-use because the name "computer-use" is reserved in Claude Code.

How it works

Claude (Desktop or Code) is the agent loop. You type a task; Claude calls the single computer tool in a see → think → act cycle:

See — screenshot returns the real screen (downscaled to ~1280px for grounding accuracy) → Think — Claude picks the next action + pixel coordinates → Act — the server moves the real mouse / types on the real keyboard → a fresh screenshot comes back automatically after every action, and it repeats.

Two Windows-specific details make clicks land accurately (src/screen.py):

• DPI awareness — SetProcessDpiAwareness(2) is set at import time so screenshot pixels == pyautogui cursor coordinates even under display scaling (125% / 150% / …).
• Stateless coordinate scaling — screenshots are downscaled (LANCZOS) to at most COMPUTER_USE_MAX_DIM on the longest side before sending; incoming click coordinates are scaled back up to real pixels. The scale factor is a pure function of monitor geometry + MAX_DIM, so mapping never depends on which screenshot ran last. Coordinates are clamped inside the target monitor so a stray click can't fly off-screen.

Multi-monitor: every call takes an optional monitor index (1 = primary, 2.. = others, 0 = the whole virtual desktop). action="monitors" enumerates the setup. Origins may be negative for screens left/above the primary — to_real() handles the offset. Use the same monitor for a click as for the screenshot you're clicking on.

Architecture

src/realhands/
  server.py   FastMCP server "computer-use"; the single `computer` tool (action enum
              modeled on Anthropic's reference computer_20250124 tool); returns
              status text + a fresh screenshot after every action
  screen.py   DPI awareness, mss capture, downscale, model-space -> real-pixel mapping
  input.py    pyautogui mouse/keyboard execution; xdotool-style key-name translation
              (Return, Page_Down, ctrl+a, super, ...); clipboard-paste fast path for
              long/Unicode/multiline typing (preserves your existing clipboard);
              activate_window via win32 AttachThreadInput
  safety.py   kill switches + lazy arm / stand-down lifecycle
  config.py   .env-driven configuration (all defaults are sensible; .env is optional)
install.py    one-shot installer: venv, deps, .env, Claude Desktop registration

Stack: Python 3.10/3.11 · mcp (FastMCP, stdio) · pyautogui · mss · pillow · pynput · keyboard · pyperclip · python-dotenv — plus pygetwindow and pywin32 for activate_window.

The computer tool

A single tool with an action parameter:

Action	What it does
screenshot	Capture the screen (always start a task with this)
cursor_position	Report the real mouse position
monitors	List detected monitors (for multi-screen setups)
mouse_move	Glide the cursor to coordinate
left_click / right_click / middle_click / double_click / triple_click	Click at coordinate (or current position)
left_click_drag	Drag from text="x1,y1" to coordinate=[x2,y2]
left_mouse_down / left_mouse_up	Press / release the left button
scroll	Scroll at coordinate (scroll_direction + scroll_amount notches)
type	Type text (clipboard-paste path for long/Unicode/multiline)
key	Press a key or chord — "Return", "ctrl+s", "alt+Tab"
hold_key	Hold keys for duration seconds
activate_window	Bring an app to the front by title substring (beats Windows' foreground-lock; far more reliable than clicking the taskbar)
wait	Sleep duration seconds, then screenshot
stop	Stand down: close the STOP overlay + release the panic hotkey (call as the final action)

Coordinates are in the pixel space of the most recent screenshot; its size is reported with every capture. After every non-screenshot action the tool waits ~0.4s for the UI to settle and returns a fresh screenshot.

Safety — it controls your REAL machine

This is fully autonomous: it does not ask before each action. Three independent kill switches (src/safety.py):

• Fail-safe corner — slam the mouse into the top-left corner → pyautogui raises FailSafeException and the action aborts instantly.
• Panic hotkey — Ctrl+Alt+Q (configurable) → hard-kills the server process (os._exit(1)).
• STOP overlay — an always-on-top window (top-right) showing the current action, with a big red ■ STOP AGENT button that also hard-kills the process.

Lazy arm / stand-down: the overlay and the global panic hotkey are armed lazily on the first action of a task, not at server startup — idle sessions show nothing and grab no hotkeys. They stand down again when the agent calls action="stop", or automatically after COMPUTER_USE_IDLE_STOP seconds (default 30) of inactivity. The lightweight stdio process stays connected so the next task is instant. Everything re-arms automatically on the next action.

Pacing also helps you stay in control: every action is followed by a configurable pause (COMPUTER_USE_PAUSE) and the cursor glides rather than teleports (COMPUTER_USE_MOVE_DURATION), so you can watch and interrupt.

Don't leave it unsupervised on anything that can spend money, send messages, or delete data.

Install

Requires Python 3.10 or 3.11 (3.13+ untested; avoid the 3.14 beta).

From PyPI

pip install realhands

This installs the realhands console script and the importable realhands package. Run the server with either realhands or python -m realhands.server.

From source (with Claude Desktop registration)

git clone https://github.com/kanishka089/computer-use-mcp
cd computer-use-mcp
py -3.10 install.py

This creates .venv/, installs the package + deps (editable), copies .env.example to .env if missing, and registers the server in Claude Desktop's config (backing up any existing config). Restart Claude Desktop, then look for the computer-use tool.

Claude Code

Register it as a user-scope stdio server named realhands (pointing at the Python that has the package installed):

claude mcp add realhands --scope user -- python -m realhands.server

The tool then appears as mcp__realhands__computer in every project.

Use

Just ask. For example:

Take a screenshot, open Chrome, go to YouTube, and search for "lofi".

Watch your real cursor move and your logged-in Chrome respond. Real-world proof: it has autonomously completed a full Google Play Console release flow in the user's own signed-in Chrome session.

Configuration (.env, optional — defaults are fine)

Var	Default	Meaning
COMPUTER_USE_MAX_DIM	1280	Longest screenshot side sent to Claude (sweet spot for accuracy + token cost)
COMPUTER_USE_MONITOR	1	Default monitor (1 = primary, 2.. = others, 0 = all screens); overridable per call
COMPUTER_USE_IMAGE_FORMAT	png	png (crisp text) or jpeg (cheaper tokens)
COMPUTER_USE_PAUSE	0.15	Delay after each pyautogui action (interruptibility)
COMPUTER_USE_PANIC_HOTKEY	ctrl+alt+q	Global hard-stop hotkey
COMPUTER_USE_OVERLAY	1	Show the STOP overlay window
COMPUTER_USE_MOVE_DURATION	0.4	Cursor glide time (human-like movement)
COMPUTER_USE_IDLE_STOP	30	Auto stand-down after this many idle seconds (0 = never)

Known gotchas

• MCP connection drops when the agent idles between turns. The stdio connection to realhands can silently die while Claude is thinking/waiting between turns. Fix: issue a screenshot action — it silently reconnects. Importantly, an action that "failed" with Connection closed often still executed on the real machine — take a screenshot and check the actual screen state before retrying, or you may double-click / double-submit.
• Click coordinates must match the screenshot's monitor. If you screenshot monitor=2 and then click without passing monitor=2, the click lands on the primary.
• activate_window beats the taskbar. Windows' foreground-lock makes taskbar clicks unreliable (the icon just flashes). activate_window uses AttachThreadInput + z-order toggling + a minimize/restore fallback, so prefer it for app switching.
• Don't run with Python 3.13/3.14. Tested on 3.10/3.11 only; the installer warns.
• Typing long/Unicode text uses the clipboard. Your clipboard is saved and restored, but anything watching the clipboard will see the pasted text momentarily.

Self-test

python -m realhands.screen

Captures the screen, prints real vs. sent dimensions and the scale factor, writes test_capture.png, and runs a coordinate round-trip check (center + both corners).