AXSwift6

Swift 6 accessibility client API for macOS 26+.

Fork of stonerl/AXSwift for Thaw. Wraps Apple’s C AXUIElement APIs with a typed Swift surface, explicit errors, and Sendable handles that serialize access to the underlying unannotated Core Foundation references.

This package is a thin wrapper — not an accessibility object model. It translates types and error codes, and makes handles safe to use across concurrency domains.

Requirements

• macOS 26+
• Swift 6 toolchain

Architecture

flowchart TB
  subgraph consumers [Consumers]
    Thaw[Thaw / AppKit apps]
    Ex1[AXSwiftExample]
    Ex2[AXSwiftObserverExample]
  end

  subgraph package [AXSwift6]
    UIElement[UIElement]
    Application[Application]
    SystemWide[systemWideElement]
    Observer[Observer]
    Constants[Role / Attribute / Action / AXNotification]
  end

  subgraph apple [macOS]
    AX[ApplicationServices AXUIElement]
  end

  Thaw --> UIElement
  Thaw --> Observer
  Ex1 --> UIElement
  Ex2 --> Observer

  Application -.->|typealias| UIElement
  SystemWide -.->|typealias| UIElement
  Observer --> UIElement
  UIElement --> Constants
  UIElement --> AX
  Observer --> AX

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Type	Role
UIElement	Core handle: attributes, actions, messaging timeout, equality
Application	UIElement for a process (forProcessID, all(), windows(), …)
systemWideElement	Global AX element (focused app, hit-testing, …)
Observer	Run-loop notifications for an application’s UI
Constants	Typed Role, Attribute, Action, AXNotification, …

Layout

Sources/AXSwift6/     Library (UIElement core + focused extensions)
Examples/             AppKit demos (package executables)
Tests/AXSwift6Tests/  Swift Testing
.github/workflows/    CI + release

flowchart LR
  subgraph sources [Sources/AXSwift6]
    Core[UIElement.swift]
    Attr[UIElement+Attributes]
    Val[UIElement+Values]
    Act[UIElement+Actions]
    Ins[UIElement+Inspect]
    App[Application / SystemWide / Observer]
    Const[Constants / Error / AXSwift]
  end

  Core --> Attr
  Core --> Val
  Core --> Act
  Core --> Ins
  App --> Core
  Const --> Core

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Install

// Package.swift
.package(url: "https://github.com/thaw-app/AXSwift6.git", from: "0.4.0"),

.product(name: "AXSwift6", package: "AXSwift6"),

import AXSwift6

guard checkIsProcessTrusted(prompt: true) else { return }

if let app = Application(forProcessID: somePID) {
    let role = try app.role()
    let windows = try app.windows()
}

Grant Accessibility permission to your process or AX calls return AXError.apiDisabled / .notImplemented.

Examples

Requires Accessibility permission for the terminal / Xcode:

swift run AXSwiftExample           # query frontmost app, Finder, system-wide
swift run AXSwiftObserverExample   # watch Finder window notifications

Develop

swift test

Tag a semver release (1.2.3) or run the Release workflow to publish a GitHub Release after tests pass.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.