global-input-tracker

Cross-platform global mouse and keyboard event tracker for Node.js using Rust and napi-rs.

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✨ Features

• 🔁 Real-time global keyboard & mouse event tracking
• ⚡ Built in Rust for speed and low overhead
• 🔌 Native Node.js addon via napi-rs
• 💻 Supports Windows, macOS, Linux (X11)

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🚀 Installation

npm install global-input-tracker

yarn add global-input-tracker

Support matrix

Operating Systems

	node14	node16	node18
Windows x64	✗	✗	✗
Windows x32	✗	✗	✗
Windows arm64	✗	✗	✗
macOS x64	✓	✓	✓
macOS arm64	✗	✗	✗
Linux x64 gnu	✓	✓	✓
Linux x64 musl	✓	✓	✓
Linux arm gnu	✗	✗	✗
Linux arm64 gnu	✗	✗	✗
Linux arm64 musl	✗	✗	✗
Android arm64	✗	✗	✗
Android armv7	✗	✗	✗
FreeBSD x64	✓	✓	✓

Ability

Global Input Tracking

• Monitor all keyboard presses and releases across the system
• Track mouse movements globally, even outside your app window
• Detect mouse button presses and releases

🔄 Cross-Platform Support

• Works on macOS, Linux (GNU + MUSL), and FreeBSD
• Node.js runtime support: Node 14+, 16+, 18+

🔌 Efficient Native Performance

• Powered by Rust and rdev for low-latency input detection
• Uses napi-rs for safe and efficient FFI to Node.js

🧩 Structured Event Data

• Returns rich InputEvent objects including:
  • event_type (e.g., KeyDown, MouseMove)
  • payload (e.g., KeyA, LeftButton)
  • x, y mouse coordinates (when applicable)

👂 Background Event Listener

• Runs in a background thread without blocking the main Node.js event loop
• Designed for real-time, asynchronous input handling

🛠 TypeScript Friendly

• Auto-generated TypeScript types
• Easy to use in both JavaScript and TypeScript environments

🧪 Run Example

To test the module locally with an example script:

node examples/main.mjs