Capture a task from anywhere on your Mac¶

This guide captures one task from the Mac menu-bar panel after the app is installed. The panel is a thin client of bob: it never parses capture grammar or writes the vault itself.

Before you start¶

Install the CLI, point it at your vault, and install Bob Mac Capture. The Continue with Mac Capture tutorial covers build, bundle, and install. Signing lives in README › Signing and Install › Signing. This page assumes the app is already on the Mac.

1. Confirm Bob and the vault in Settings¶

Open the menu-bar icon's menu and choose Settings. Under the Bob section, set Executable override to the bob you installed and Vault path to your vault. Resolved path shows what the app will use. Click Recheck Bob after changing either field.

which bob
echo "$BOB_DIR"

Confirm Resolved path matches those two values. Capture works without an Accessibility grant; that grant is only for Highlights tabs.

2. Invoke the global shortcut and read the preview¶

The production shortcut is Control-Shift-Command-I. A development shortcut Control-Shift-Command-R is selectable in Settings. See Keyboard for the current menu and shortcut list.

Type a new task with a stable block id, for example Sharpen the shears @workshop^shears. Confirm the live preview names workshop.md and the new ^shears task before you submit.

3. Submit and find the task¶

Submit the draft from the panel footer. The panel hides only after bob reports success for the whole draft. Open workshop.md and confirm the new open task with ^shears.

The same draft from the CLI is:

bob capture 'Sharpen the shears @workshop^shears'

If it goes wrong¶

If the menu-bar icon tooltip reads Bob Mac Capture — bob is not resolved. Check Settings., follow Fix Mac Capture when bob is not resolved. If the panel stays open, the submit did not succeed; fix the preview error and submit again. Do not edit the vault from the panel.