Fixing this issue should be fairly straightforward.

The isInteracting supports only the vanilla keyUse, minecraft.options.keyUse.isDown() is not true for any controller mod even when the key use button is pressed:

private static boolean isInteracting(LivingEntity cameraEntity, Minecraft minecraft)
	{
		return minecraft.options.keyUse.isDown() && !cameraEntity.isUsingItem() &&
			Config.CLIENT.getTurningModeWhenInteracting().shouldTurn(minecraft.hitResult);
	}

So, we need to use the use item input binding provided by a controller mod, such as Controlify or Controllable. Controlify does provide a supported API for other mods to make this integration more seamless.

I could create an addon that simply uses the Shoulder Surfing API callback or a mixin to address this issue, but I wanted to know if this issue is of interest to the project authors to solve, so it can be built-in rather than having a standalone mod. Let me know so I can send a PR.

This feature is useful so that other mods depend on Shoulder surfing don't have to implement workarounds like this.

Thank your for the suggestion. I'm all in for adding new public API methods to support such a feature. Related to the discussion in #345.