NightWatch: keep clamshell Macs awake

Stop your closed-lid Mac from silently sleeping through long remote jobs

Problem

Developers close their MacBook, plug in an external display, and run remote jobs — then find in the morning that SSH died and their Codex tasks stopped hours ago. The built-in 'prevent sleep when display is off' option doesn't cover battery power, the brief wake after plugging in power, or the few seconds of clamshell blackout. Running caffeinate means remembering to type it every time, and re-checking whether it still applies after switching power sources.

Solution

A menu-bar utility that keeps the network and system awake only when needed: it detects external displays, battery-only power, and post-wake edge cases and takes over automatically, then releases when the job ends. A remote-job guard mode logs disconnects or killed processes on a timeline and alerts you, with shortcuts and auto-expiry so you don't drain power for days.

Users

Indie developers running long local/remote jobs, data and scraping engineers, remote ops people, and anyone running AI tasks overnight

MVP

One-click menu-bar awake toggle; auto-detect external display and clamshell state; log remote session drops with time and cause; auto-expire so it's never left on; exportable simple log

Revenue

One-time purchase (~$10–20) with a 7-day trial; a pro tier adds multi-device sync and custom trigger rules

Why now

More people now start local agents and run long remote jobs, so sleep-induced disconnects are a frequent, concrete pain; the scope is small enough for one person to build in 2–3 weeks using system APIs and it complements existing menu-bar tools