The permissions macOS asks for

macOS asks the first time you use each feature. None of them is requested at launch.

The permissions

• Microphone: without it, voice conversation and dictation don't work. See setting up voice.
• Speech recognition: used by the dictation that runs on your own Mac. See dictation.
• Screen recording: without it, recording the app window doesn't work. See the recording panel.
• Camera: the image appears in the webcam panel and does not leave your Mac.
• Calendar: the app reads your calendar to warn you about meetings and open the call link. Nothing is written to your calendar. See calendar and meetings.
• Notifications: macOS alerts while the app is in the background. The request only happens after you turn on "Notify on the Mac outside the app" in alerts and sounds.
• Desktop, Documents and Downloads: the folders where the agents read and write.

Folder access

macOS charges the permission to CanvasCode, not to the agent program. An agent opened in here is a child process, and the system assigns the access to the responsible app.

Denying it does not produce a permission prompt in the agent's terminal. The agent gets a plain access-denied error, and often concludes that the file doesn't exist.

To allow it later: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Files and Folders, and enable CanvasCode for the folder in question.

When macOS stopped asking

A denied permission is not asked about again: the request answers "no" straight away, with no dialog. This also happens when an old permission record for this app was made by a binary with a different signature, such as a development build or an earlier version.

In Settings → Diagnostics you'll find:

• the state of Microphone, Speech recognition and Screen recording;
• Ask for permission, which only has an effect while the system hasn't decided yet;
• Open System Settings and Screen Recording in System Settings, which lead to each system pane;
• Recheck, which re-reads the state;
• Delete the permissions and ask again, which appears when one of them is denied. It deletes this app's permission record and nothing else. The app has to be reopened afterwards, and the questions start over.