Show HN: Adrafinil – keep a lid-closed Mac awake only while agents work

What we know about show

A month ago there was a wave of posts and tweets about engineers walking around cafes and parks with their MacBooks propped half-open, as fully closing the lid forces sleep that stops their AI agents. Some people made snarky comments about using tmux or Amphetamine, and some defended their choice with “but I only need it sometimes, and forgetting to disable Amphetamine and finding my laptop discharged in my bag is worse.

What is at stake

Unlike caffeinate, it will prevent your MacBook from sleeping even with the lid closed, with no external power or display, using pmset disablesleep 1. Unlike other sleep-preventing apps, Adrafinil only activates when there’s an agent actively doing something.

The background

It detects agent activity through hooks it installs into Claude Code, Codex, and others

Where this fits in Signal Ledger

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Signal Ledger view

Unlike other sleep-preventing apps, Adrafinil only activates when there’s an agent actively doing something. To reassure you it’s working, the app shows the active status in the menu bar.