ApplicantScout: LFG Applicant & Party Overlay

Check applicants before you invite.

See Warcraft Logs performance, RaiderIO scores, and dungeon or raid experience beside Group Finder. Compare applicants in one table, inspect players who applied together, or switch to Party view to review your current group.

Requires the free ApplicantScout Companion for Windows. Install both the addon from this page and the Windows app. The companion displays the overlay shown in the screenshots; the addon alone does not display it.

Get the Windows companion · Setup guide

On the download page, choose ApplicantScoutCompanionSetup-*.exe under Assets. Setup requires a free Warcraft Logs account and an API Client ID/Secret. The guide shows where to create them. ApplicantScout does not ask for your Blizzard password.

What You Can Check

• Applicants: Warcraft Logs performance, RaiderIO score, role, and item level while your listing fills.
• Grouped applications: each member's results and a combined Fit estimate for players applying together.
• Your current party or raid: review the roster after inviting players or joining someone else's group.
• Dungeon and raid experience: target-key Fit and dungeon history for Mythic+, or progress and Fit for raid listings, where data is available.
• Clearly labelled results: a neutral Fit estimate such as ~65 shows the match for the target key or raid. Normal, Heroic, Mythic, and M+ results belong to the applying specialization and keep their WCL percentile colors. Compact headers and tooltips explain best/median values, limited samples, and Fit evidence.

Applications sort by the listing's M+ or raid percentile. Grouped applicants stay together and use their lowest member percentile; groups with missing parses follow those with complete results. The detail card adapts to the available space and scrolls independently in short windows.

Missing logs are marked as missing. Fit estimates how the available data matches your key or raid; it is not a success probability or a Warcraft Logs percentile. M+ WCL values measure damage for every role, including healers and tanks. They do not measure healing, survival, interrupts, or other utility. You choose whom to invite; ApplicantScout does not auto-invite players.

The addon can also default new M+ listings to Competitive. Choose another default playstyle or turn it off in settings; Auto Hi greetings are optional.

Quick Setup

The companion offers optional usage statistics, enabled when no preference has been saved. Existing choices are preserved, and sharing can be disabled in Settings. Reports contain a random installation ID, version and daily milestones, not names, screenshots or credentials. Participating installations send reports to the ApplicantScout service hosted on Cloudflare. What is shared and how to turn it off.

1. Install ApplicantScout from this page.
2. Download ApplicantScout Companion and run ApplicantScoutCompanionSetup-*.exe. Use the portable ZIP if you prefer to unpack and run the app yourself.
3. Launch the companion and follow the setup guide to create your Warcraft Logs Client ID/Secret and select the active WoW _retail_\Screenshots folder.
4. Use Test WCL in companion Settings to check your credentials. Reload WoW, then open a Mythic+ or raid listing, or join a group and select Party in the companion.

Companion updates show download and verification progress. Cancel stops an update before the installer starts, and leaves it available to retry.

Current Windows builds are unsigned, so SmartScreen may warn and show an unknown publisher. Download from the linked GitHub release and proceed only if you trust the source. The .sha256 sidecar verifies file integrity, not publisher identity.

How It Works

1. The addon watches your active Group Finder listing and current party/raid roster.
2. It renders compact QR snapshots and triggers normal WoW screenshots.
3. The companion watches the configured Screenshots folder, decodes ApplicantScout snapshots, fetches WCL data, reads optional local RaiderIO data, and updates the overlay.
4. The QR frame appears only during the screenshot capture window so it stays out of the way between snapshots.

QR transport pauses completely during combat, for the full active Mythic+ run, and during raid boss encounters. It remains available out of combat in a raid, so you can keep recruiting between pulls.

ApplicantScout temporarily raises screenshot quality and uses JPG format only during each QR capture, then restores your prior screenshot settings after the screenshot. /apscout off and the next /reload also restore settings if a capture was interrupted.

Privacy and Trust

ApplicantScout does not read WoW memory, inject code, automate gameplay, or send chat messages as a transport.

Trust notes for the Windows companion:

• It does not ask for Blizzard credentials or account access.
• It watches only the configured WoW Screenshots folder for ApplicantScout QR payloads.
• If the RaiderIO addon is installed, it can read local RaiderIO addon database files under _retail_\Interface\AddOns\RaiderIO\db to enrich score/progress context.
• It stores Warcraft Logs API credentials locally under your Windows user profile.
• Decoded RaiderIO lookup payloads can be cached under %LOCALAPPDATA%\applicant-scout\cache\raiderio-local.
• It is source-available in the public companion repository.
• Current Windows builds are unsigned, so SmartScreen can warn on first install; the release also publishes a .sha256 sidecar for file integrity, not publisher identity.

Before sharing support material publicly, redact /apscout status output, /apscout taintcheck output, companion logs, QR screenshots, manual decode output, config.env, token.json, character-cache.json, last-live-snapshot.json, and screenshot-manual-index-v2-*.json. These can include WCL Client ID/Secret, OAuth access token, character names, realm names, applicant/roster snapshots, listing titles/comments, screenshots folder paths, absolute screenshot file paths, keystone/listing metadata, and WCL/RaiderIO evidence. Treat the entire %LOCALAPPDATA%\applicant-scout\config\ and %LOCALAPPDATA%\applicant-scout\cache\ directories as private; do not attach either directory wholesale.

QR screenshots may remain if the companion is absent, interrupted, pointed at the wrong folder, or the Screenshots folder is synced/shared before cleanup.

Troubleshooting

The Group Finder panel stays focused on everyday applicant scouting, playstyle, and Auto Hi controls. Advanced diagnostics and QR recovery remain available through the slash commands below.

• Overlay stays empty: open companion Settings and confirm the Screenshots path points at the active _retail_\Screenshots folder.
• WoW side looks idle: run /apscout status while hosting a listing.
• Need a manual sync: keep ApplicantScout enabled and run /apscout shotnow; the request waits until combat, an active M+ run, or a boss encounter ends.
• Applicant state looks stale: run /apscout reset while transport is active.
• WCL cells stay empty: open companion Settings and use Test WCL.
• Windows warns about the installer: current builds are unsigned. Download only from the linked GitHub Releases page and compare the .sha256 sidecar if you want an integrity check.
• QR frame is in the way: run /apscout qrmove, Alt-drag it, then run the same command again to lock it. Use /apscout qrreset to restore the default position.

Handy Slash Commands

/apscout on | off       enable/disable capture
/apscout toggle         flip enabled state
/apscout config         open/close settings panel
/apscout setup          show companion download and setup
/apscout status         show current state + QR diagnostics
/apscout playstyle [off|learning|relaxed|competitive|carry] set M+ default playstyle
/apscout reset          clear transport cache, queue fresh snapshot
/apscout shotnow        request snapshot while enabled; defers in combat/M+/boss fights
/apscout qrvisible      toggle persistent QR always-visible mode; off clears it
/apscout qrmove         toggle QR move mode (Alt+drag QR frame)
/apscout qrreset        reset QR frame position to top-left
/apscout taintcheck     probe C_LFGList field secret-tagging
/apscout debug [on|off] toggle debug logging
/apscout competitive [on|off] legacy alias for Competitive / Off

Compatibility

• World of Warcraft Retail / Midnight 12.x
• ApplicantScout and ApplicantScout Companion should be kept on matching current releases
• Optional RaiderIO main-score support when the RaiderIO addon is installed
• Classic-era clients are not supported

Links

• Addon source: github.com/Antrakt92/ApplicantScout-Addon
• Addon issues: github.com/Antrakt92/ApplicantScout-Addon/issues
• Companion releases: github.com/Antrakt92/ApplicantScout-Companion/releases/latest
• Companion issues: github.com/Antrakt92/ApplicantScout-Companion/issues

License

ApplicantScout is MIT licensed.

The bundled libs/qrencode.lua library retains its upstream 3-clause BSD license header. See the packaged THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md and libs/qrencode.lua for details.