Temporarily disable macOS capture of USB RFID reader(s)

Hello.

I am attempting to wrap the C library libnfc as a Swift library. This is not for use on macOS - it's mainly for use on Linux (Raspberry Pi).

I have a USB reader and my code appears to work so far, however the code/test/debug cycle is suboptimal if I'm running the code on the Pi.

As I use a Mac for day-to-day coding, I'd prefer to use Xcode and my Mac for development. MacOS appears to capture the NFC hardware for its own frameworks and attempting to open a connection to the USB device gives a Unable to claim USB interface (Permission denied) error.

ioreg shows that the hardware is claimed by an Apple framework:

"UsbExclusiveOwner" = "pid 10946, com.apple.ifdbun"

Is there a way to temporarily over-ride that system and use the hardware myself? I've tried Googling but most of the replies are out of date and Claude's advice launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.ifdreader.plist doesn't appear to work...

I'm wary of disabling SIP - is there a simple way to have access to the hardware myself?

Thanks.

Temporarily disable macOS capture of USB RFID reader(s)
 
 
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