flaui-cli

A CLI for automating Windows applications built on FlaUI.

flaui-cli gives scripts and coding agents a simple command-line interface for driving Windows applications through UI Automation. It keeps a background daemon alive between invocations, remembers the currently attached window, and refreshes element refs through YAML snapshots.

This project is inspired by playwright-cli.

Key Features

• CLI-first workflow for Windows applications automation
• Built on FlaUI UIA3
• Background daemon keeps the attached window alive across commands
• Snapshot-based element refs such as e1, e2, e3
• Built-in screenshot and text extraction commands

Requirements

• Windows x64
• .NET 10 SDK or newer
• A Windows application that exposes useful UI Automation data

Getting Started

dotnet tool install --global flaui-cli # Install the CLI globally
gh skill install zzzkan/flaui-cli flaui-cli # Install agent skills

flaui-cli --help

State and Snapshots

flaui-cli uses an internal background daemon to preserve state between separate CLI invocations.

• The first command starts the daemon automatically.
• The daemon exits after 5 minutes of inactivity.
• launch or attach selects the managed window.
• snapshot writes the current accessibility tree to .flaui-cli/snapshot-<timestamp>.yml.
• The latest snapshot defines the valid element refs for the current attached window.
• If the UI changes and a ref no longer resolves, run snapshot again.

Snapshot entries look like this:

- button "OK" [ref=e12]

In a fresh snapshot, the attached window itself is written first, so the root window ref is e1.

Artifacts are written to .flaui-cli/ in the current working directory:

• snapshot-*.yml
• screenshot-*.png

Demo

Launch an application

Use Notepad as a quick smoke test:

flaui-cli launch notepad.exe

This launches Notepad, attaches its first visible top-level window, and writes a snapshot file under .flaui-cli/.

Open the generated snapshot and find the ref for the editor control. Then continue with commands like these:

flaui-cli fill e3 "Hello from FlaUI CLI"
flaui-cli get-text e3
flaui-cli screenshot e1
flaui-cli close e1

In that flow:

• e3 is an example editor ref from the latest snapshot.
• e1 is the root Notepad window from the latest snapshot.

Attach to a running application

Attach to an already running application by matching a window title substring.

flaui-cli list
flaui-cli attach "Calculator"
flaui-cli snapshot

attach performs a case-insensitive substring match against visible top-level desktop windows.

Commands

Window Management

flaui-cli launch <filename> [--args "..."]
flaui-cli attach <title>
flaui-cli list
flaui-cli focus <ref>
flaui-cli close <ref>

• launch launches an application and attaches its first visible top-level window
• attach attaches a visible top-level desktop window by title substring
• list lists visible top-level desktop windows
• focus focuses a window from the latest snapshot
• close closes a window from the latest snapshot

Tree and Artifacts

flaui-cli snapshot
flaui-cli screenshot <ref>
flaui-cli get-text <ref>

• snapshot writes the current accessibility tree to .flaui-cli/snapshot-*.yml
• screenshot captures an element or window into .flaui-cli/screenshot-*.png
• get-text reads text content from an element

Element Actions

flaui-cli click <ref> [--button left|right] [--double]
flaui-cli fill <ref> <value>

• click clicks or double-clicks an element from the latest snapshot
• fill replaces the value of a text field

Acknowledgements

• playwright-cli
• FlaUI