Mac Wi-Fi troubleshooting with Kilobat

This skill answers one question: is the Wi-Fi link itself the problem, and what would improve it? It covers signal strength, interference, channel crowding, placement and drops. If the Wi-Fi turns out fine and the internet is still slow, switch to mac-network-troubleshooting.

Setup

Use the Kilobat MCP tools if connected, otherwise the kilobat CLI (brew install seifip/kilobat/kilobat, macOS 14+; ask before installing). Commands here need CLI 0.2 or later (kilobat --version); if one is unknown, suggest brew upgrade kilobat. Read commands below are safe to run. Ask before anything that changes settings; the kilobat skill lists the rules.

macOS shows Wi-Fi names only to apps with Location permission. The CLI gets them from the running Kilobat app; if the app is closed or lacks permission, ssid is null and scans list "Hidden network". Signal, channel and band still work. Point the user to kilobat open, or System Settings › Privacy & Security › Location Services for Kilobat.

1. Read the link

For the radio alone, kilobat wifi status --json is quickest: ssid, rssi, noise, signalNoiseRatio, channel, band, transmitMbps and score. kilobat diagnose --json adds router latency and loss; its measurements.radio has the same fields: