nut.js (Native UI Toolkit)

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About

nut.js is a cross-platform native UI automation / testing tool.

It allows for native UI interactions via keyboard and / or mouse, but additionally gives you the possibility to navigate the screen based on image matching.

The Price of Open Source

If you came here after I removed public packages from npm as announced in 'the blog post', please be aware that

• nut.js is still open source (you are right here, aren't you?)
• nut.js is still free to use, you'll just have to build it from sources
• nut.js is still maintained and developed further
• nut.js does not force anyone to pay anything, because you can even build every single plugin yourself. It's just interfaces to implement

nut.js is developed with community in mind.

A huge "Thank you!" goes out to all sponsors who make open source a bit more sustainable!

Demo

Check out this demo video to get a first impression of what nut.js is capable of.

Tutorials

Please consult the project website at nutjs.dev for in-depth tutorials

API Docs

nut.js provides public API documentation auto-generated by TypeDoc.

Community

Feel free to join our Discord community

Modules

This list gives an overview on currently implemented and planned functionality. It's work in progress and will undergo constant modification.

Clipboard

• Copy text to clipboard
• Paste text from clipboard

Keyboard

• Support for standard US keyboard layout
• Support for multimedia keys

Mouse

• Support for mouse movement
• Support for mouse scroll
• Configurable movement speed
• Mouse drag

Window

• List all windows
• Retrieve active window
• Retrieve window title
• Retrieve window size and position
• Focus window
• Resize window
• Reposition window
• Minimize a window (*)
• Restore a window (*)
• Inspect GUI elements of a window (*)
• Search for specific GUI elements of a window (*)

Screen

• Retrieve RGBA color information on screen
• Highlighting screen regions
• Find a single or multiple occurrences of an image on screen (requires an additional provider package like e.g. nut-tree/template-matcher)
• Wait for an image to appear on screen (requires an additional provider package like e.g. nut-tree/template-matcher)
• Find a single or multiple occurrences of text on screen (*)
• Wait for a piece of text to appear on screen (*)
• Find a single or multiple windows on screen (*)
• Wait for a window to appear on screen (*)
• Hooks to trigger actions based on detected text, images or windows (*)

(*) Requires an additional provider package, visit nutjs.dev for more info

Integration

• Jest
• Electron
• Custom log integration

Sample

The following snippet shows a valid nut.js example (using multiple addons):

"use strict";

const {
  mouse,
  screen,
  singleWord,
  sleep,
  useConsoleLogger,
  ConsoleLogLevel,
  straightTo,
  centerOf,
  Button,
  getActiveWindow,
} = require("@nut-tree/nut-js");
const {
  preloadLanguages,
  Language,
  LanguageModelType,
  configure,
} = require("@nut-tree/plugin-ocr");

configure({ languageModelType: LanguageModelType.BEST });

useConsoleLogger({ logLevel: ConsoleLogLevel.DEBUG });

screen.config.autoHighlight = true;
screen.config.ocrConfidence = 0.8;

function activeWindowRegion() {
  return getActiveWindow().then((activeWindow) => activeWindow.region);
}

(async () => {
  await preloadLanguages([Language.English], [LanguageModelType.BEST]);
  await sleep(5000);
  const result = await screen.find(singleWord("@nut-tree/nut-js"));
  await mouse.move(straightTo(centerOf(result)));
  await mouse.click(Button.LEFT);
  await screen.waitFor(singleWord("Native"), 15000, 1000, {
    providerData: { partialMatch: true },
  });
  const content = await screen.read({ searchRegion: activeWindowRegion() });
  console.log(content);
})();

Installation

Prerequisites

This section lists runtime requirements for nut.js on the respective target platform.

Windows

In case you're running Windows 10 N and want to use ImageFinder plugins, please make sure to have the Media Feature Pack installed.

macOS

On macOS, Xcode command line tools are required. You can install them by running

xcode-select --install

Permissions:

nut.js requires the executing application, e.g. your terminal, to be given both Accessibility and Screen Recording permissions.

Starting with release 2.3.0, nut.js will check for and request these permissions automatically:

It will also give you a subtle hint in case permissions are lacking:

Accessibility: ##### WARNING! The application running this script is not a trusted process! Please visit https://github.com/nut-tree/nut.js#macos #####

• Screen Recording: ##### WARNING! The application running this script is not allowed to capture screen content! Please visit https://github.com/nut-tree/nut.js#macos #####

Attention:

Prior to release 2.3.0 you'll have to grant these permissions manually.

Settings -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy tab -> Accessibility -> Add...

For example, if you want to execute your node script in e.g. iTerm2, you'd have to add iTerm.app to the list. When running your script from a built-in terminal in e.g. VSCode or IntelliJ, you'd have to add the respective IDE.

Linux

Depending on your distribution, Linux setups may differ.

In general, nut.js requires

• libXtst

Installation on *buntu distributions:

sudo apt-get install libxtst-dev

Setups on other distributions might differ.

Attention:

At the moment nut.js only supports X11.

Wayland is NOT supported!

On e.g. Ubuntu you can switch to XWayland on your login screen as a workaround.

Install nut.js

Open Source

The core functionality of nut.js is open source and available on GitHub.

To build nut.js from source you'll have to build native dependencies first.

• Start with @nut-tree/libnut-core
  • A build pipeline can be found in the respective repository
• Update dependencies in nut.js to point to your local build of libnut-core
  • A build pipeline can be found in the respective repository

Pre-built packages

Pre-built packages are available for subscription plans.

Check out the pricing page for more information.

Once you subscribed to a plan, you'll receive a token which you can use to install the respective package, check out the registry access tutorial for reference.

With everything set up, running

npm i @nut-tree/nut-js

or

yarn add @nut-tree/nut-js

will install nut.js and its required dependencies.

Snapshot releases

nut.js also provides snapshot releases which allows to test upcoming features.

Running

npm i @nut-tree/nut-js@next

or

yarn add @nut-tree/nut-js@next

will install the most recent development release of nut.js.

Attention: While snapshot releases are great to work with upcoming features before a new stable release, it is still a snapshot release. Please bear in mind that things might change and / or break on snapshot releases, so it is not recommended using them in production.