- name
- Screenshot
- description
- Capture screens, windows, and regions across platforms with the right tools.
- metadata
- {"clawdbot":{"emoji":"📸","os":["linux","darwin","win32"]}}
macOS
- Use
screencapture(built-in):screencapture -x output.pngfor silent capture,-ifor interactive selection - Capture specific window by PID:
screencapture -l$(osascript -e 'tell app "AppName" to id of window 1') out.png - For retina displays, output is 2x resolution by default — add
-R x,y,w,hto capture exact pixel region - iOS Simulator:
xcrun simctl io booted screenshot output.png— faster and more reliable than screencapture
Linux
gnome-screenshotfor GNOME,spectaclefor KDE,scrotfor minimal/headless- Headless X11:
xvfb-run scrot output.png— creates virtual display for CI environments - Wayland sessions break X11 tools silently — use
grimfor Wayland,slurpfor region selection
Windows
- PowerShell built-in:
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms; [System.Windows.Forms.Screen]::PrimaryScreen | ...is verbose — prefernircmd savescreenshot nircmd savescreenshot output.pngworks from CLI without dependencies on most Windows versions- For programmatic capture,
python -m PIL.ImageGrabworks cross-platform but requires Pillow installed
Web Pages
- Playwright:
npx playwright screenshot URL output.png --full-page— handles JavaScript rendering and scrolling - Always wait for network idle:
--wait-for-timeout=5000or page never finishes loading dynamic content - Full-page screenshots of long pages pixelate when viewed — split into viewport-sized chunks instead
- Puppeteer equivalent:
page.screenshot({fullPage: true})afternetworkidle0
Format and Quality
- PNG for UI/text (lossless), JPEG for photos (smaller files)
- JPEG quality 85-92 is optimal — below 80 shows artifacts on text, above 95 gains little
- WebP offers 25-35% smaller files than JPEG at same quality — supported everywhere except older Safari
Automation Patterns
- Add timestamps to filenames:
screenshot-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).png— prevents overwrites in batch jobs - For comparison testing, use identical viewport sizes — different resolutions create false diffs
- CI screenshot artifacts: compress with
pngquantorjpegoptimbefore upload — saves storage and transfer time