Screenshot

Screenshot

Capture screenshots on macOS using the built-in screencapture command, then read the resulting image back with the Read tool so you can actually see what's on the user's screen.

When to use this skill

• The user asks for a screenshot ("ta en screenshot", "screencap", "capture this", "show me what's on screen")
• The user is debugging a UI issue and you need to see the rendered output
• The user pastes a description of a visual problem and a picture would clarify it
• You're about to ask the user to manually attach a screenshot — try this skill first

Output

All captures are written to /tmp/claude-screenshots/screenshot-<YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS>.png. The capture script prints the absolute path on stdout. After running it, immediately call the Read tool on that path to view the image.

Modes

The capture script (scripts/capture.sh) takes a mode as the first argument. Pick the mode that matches the user's intent — when in doubt, ask the user, but lean toward select (interactive region) since it's the most common case and matches what people mean by "take a screenshot of X".

Full screen — all displays merged

scripts/capture.sh full

Use when the user wants everything visible across all monitors.

Specific display

scripts/capture.sh display 1   # primary display
scripts/capture.sh display 2   # second monitor

Use when the user has multiple monitors and only wants one. Run scripts/list_displays.sh first to see what's available — it prints <displayN>\t<WxH>\t<main|secondary> and the displayN matches the argument to display.

Exact region (non-interactive)

scripts/capture.sh region X Y W H
# example: top-left 800x600 region
scripts/capture.sh region 0 0 800 600

Coordinates are in screen points, origin top-left. Use when you already know the precise region (rare — usually you'll use select instead).

Interactive region (user drags a rectangle)

scripts/capture.sh select

The macOS crosshair appears and the user drags out a rectangle. Press space to switch to window mode, Esc to cancel. Use a long Bash timeout (300000 ms = 5 min) since the command blocks until the user finishes selecting.

This is the right default when the user says "take a screenshot of X" without further specifics.

Interactive window picker (user clicks a window)

scripts/capture.sh pick-window

The crosshair turns into a camera. The user clicks the window they want. Window shadow is excluded (-o). Same long-timeout caveat as select.

Use when the user wants a specific app window and it's easier for them to click it than to describe it.

Capture a window by ID (non-interactive)

scripts/capture.sh window 12345

Use when you've already discovered the window ID via list-windows (below) and want to capture it without bothering the user. Window shadow is excluded.

Capture the frontmost window of a named app (non-interactive)

scripts/capture.sh app Safari
scripts/capture.sh app "Visual Studio Code"
scripts/capture.sh app terminal     # case-insensitive substring match

Use this when the user names an app — "screenshot Safari", "fånga VS Code", "ta en bild av Slack". It picks the topmost on-screen window owned by the matching app. Much friendlier than asking the user for a window ID. Fails with a clear message if no matching window is open.

List visible windows with their IDs

scripts/list_windows.sh

Prints one line per visible window: <windowID>\t<appName>\t<windowTitle>. Use this to find the ID of a specific window before calling capture.sh window <id>. (For the common case of "capture the frontmost window of app X", prefer capture.sh app <name> instead — it does the lookup for you.)

List active displays

scripts/list_displays.sh

Prints <displayN>\t<WxH>\t<main|secondary>. The displayN is what you pass to capture.sh display N.

Example flow:

$ scripts/list_windows.sh
4127    Safari  Anthropic — Hello, world
4128    Visual Studio Code  SKILL.md — claude-code-skill-screenshot
4131    Terminal        bash — 80x24

$ scripts/capture.sh window 4128
/tmp/claude-screenshots/screenshot-20260510-143022.png

After capturing

The script prints the path. Read it with the Read tool so you can see the image:

Read("/tmp/claude-screenshots/screenshot-20260510-143022.png")

Then describe what you see, or use it as context for the user's question.

Permissions

On macOS 10.15+, the parent process (Terminal, iTerm, the Claude Code app) needs Screen Recording permission in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording. If screencapture produces a black image or fails, that's the cause — direct the user there. The setting requires the parent app to be restarted after granting.

Customizing the output directory

Set CLAUDE_SCREENSHOT_DIR to override /tmp/claude-screenshots:

CLAUDE_SCREENSHOT_DIR=~/Pictures/claude scripts/capture.sh full

Why these defaults

• PNG, not JPG: lossless, captures UI text crisply, and the multimodal Read tool handles it natively.
• Silent (-x): no shutter sound when Claude triggers the capture programmatically. The user didn't press the button, so the sound would be confusing.
• No window shadow (-o for window modes): shadows add transparent padding that wastes pixels and confuses anyone trying to crop the result.
• Timestamped filenames in /tmp: avoids collisions, lets macOS clean them up automatically, and the path is easy to pass to the Read tool.