agents ask.
you answer.

What it looks like

One question per screen.
The answer is the interface.

Fare un cenno — Italian: to give a small sign. To nod, to mention briefly, to beckon silently. That's the whole interaction model: agents make a small sign, you answer with one.

How it works

Three small signs.

1. 01

   The agent asks

   Claude Code, Claude Desktop, OpenClaw, Hermes, or any other agent that speaks MCP calls the ask_user tool — text, choice, scale, or confirm.

2. 02

   A panel slides in

   A non-activating macOS panel floats above your work. It never grabs your keyboard — you answer when you glance at it, not when it interrupts.

3. 03

   Structured data comes back

   The agent receives {answer, via, elapsed_s} — typed results, not parsed strings. Timeouts are part of the contract.

Sound-out

It can speak, too.

When you're not looking at the screen, cenno reads the prompt aloud — then waits, the same as always.

• On-device, private

  A neural voice (Supertonic) runs fully local — nothing is sent anywhere. Or use the fast built-in macOS voice. Ten voices to choose from.

• Only when it matters

  You set the bar: speak only high-urgency asks, or everything. The agent marks each prompt's urgency; a short say line is read instead of the full text.

• Your output, your voice

  Pick the voice and the audio output device. Off by default — a single switch in cenno's settings turns it on (and off again) whenever you want an ear on your agents.

iPhone & Apple Watch · in testing

Answer from your wrist.

When you step away from the Mac, cenno can hand the question to your phone or Watch. The agent asks once; you answer wherever you are, and the result flows back the same way.

• Your iCloud, end to end

  Prompts travel through your private iCloud (CloudKit). The developer never sees them — same local-first promise as the Mac.

• You decide what routes where

  Per device: off, fallback (only if you don't answer on the Mac in time), or mirror (live). iPhone fallback by default; Watch off until you turn it on.

• Second-screen mode

  Park an old iPhone on your desk as an ambient display — it shows a quiet clock until an agent needs you, then lights up with the question.

Quickstart · 60 seconds

Wire it into a project?

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cenno": {
      "command": "/Applications/cenno.app/Contents/MacOS/cenno",
      "args": ["--mcp-stdio"]
    }
  }
}

/Applications/cenno.app/Contents/MacOS/cenno \
  ask "Ship it?" --timeout 30

There's also a ready-made agent skill that teaches your agent to ask well — input kinds, etiquette, graceful timeouts.

Getting started · For agents

Three prompts.
Drop one in.

cenno speaks MCP — any agent that knows the cenno skill can ask you questions through it. Copy a prompt below and hand it to Claude Code, Claude Desktop, or any MCP-capable agent.

Install cenno if it isn't already:
  brew install --cask glebis/tap/cenno
  npx skills add glebis/claude-skills@cenno -g -y
Add cenno to this project's .mcp.json, then run a UX discovery interview — 6 questions:
  1. What's the most important problem you're working on right now? (text)
  2. Who are you building for? (choice: myself / a small team / customers / still figuring out)
  3. What does success look like in 3 months? (text)
  4. Where does your workflow break down most often? (text)
  5. How confident do you feel about the current direction? (scale 1–7)
  6. If you had to ship something tomorrow, what would you cut? (text)
Use the question flow theme. Return a structured summary with key signals.

Install cenno if it isn't already:
  brew install --cask glebis/tap/cenno
  npx skills add glebis/claude-skills@cenno -g -y
Add cenno to this project's .mcp.json, then run a wellbeing check-in — 5 questions:
  1. How are you feeling right now? (choice: good / tired / stressed / anxious / calm)
  2. How did you sleep last night? (scale 1–7, 1 = terrible, 7 = great)
  3. Any physical tension or discomfort? (text)
  4. Is anything weighing on your mind? (text)
  5. What would help you most right now? (choice: a break / movement / food / talk to someone / just keep going)
Use the mood flow theme. Finish with a gentle summary — notice patterns, don't diagnose.

Install cenno if it isn't already:
  brew install --cask glebis/tap/cenno
  npx skills add glebis/claude-skills@cenno -g -y
Add cenno to this project's .mcp.json, then run a goals alignment check-in — 5 questions:
  1. What's your single most important priority this week? (text)
  2. Are you working on it today? (confirm)
  3. How aligned does today feel with your longer-term goals? (scale 1–7)
  4. What keeps pulling you off track? (text)
  5. One thing worth protecting time for tomorrow? (text)
Use the reminder flow theme. Save answers to goals-checkin.md and return a short reflection.

Each prompt includes the install step — hand it to a fresh agent and it runs end to end. The cenno skill in the repo teaches agents all input kinds, etiquette, and timeout handling.

Whose data?

Yours. All of it.

• Local by design

  Every exchange lands in a local SQLite file with user-only permissions. cenno makes no network connections on its own.

• Queryable history

  cenno export dumps your whole answer history as JSON or CSV. Your answers become your own dataset.

• Respectful by policy

  Pause prompts from the tray — 15 minutes to “until tomorrow”. Fullscreen keeps panels quiet automatically. Agents just see a normal timeout.

For developers

Developer?

• Ship your own control

  The prompt UI is an A2UI catalog (cenno:catalog/v1): write a plain React view, register a thin adapter, and agents can render it. Raw A2UI payloads are validated at the Rust boundary, so a new control normally needs no Rust changes. The catalog guide has the inventory and the recipe.

• Drive it from the CLI

  cenno ask "Ship it?" --timeout 30 from any script — exit codes for answered / timed out, JSON on stdout, and cenno export --format csv for the whole answer history.

• Or speak MCP

  One ask_user tool covers text, choice, scale, and confirm — plus flow color, progress dots, timeouts, and full A2UI layouts when a simple form isn't enough. The contract is in the README.

Something missing or broken? Create an issue — and see CONTRIBUTING before your first PR.

Presentation

The two-minute version.

A slide walk-through of cenno — what it is, the input kinds, sound-out, and the iPhone & Watch companion. Built with reveal.js.