macos-screen-recorder

When to Use

Use when you need to script a screen recording WITH system sound on macOS from the CLI (demos, captures, voice-demo recording) — the case QuickTime and screencapture -v can't cover without a virtual audio device.

_Source: connerkward/macos-screen-recorder-system-audio (MIT)._

macos-screen-recorder (sck-record)

sck-record.swift → compiled sck-record (binary gitignored; built by setup-machine, or

swiftc -O sck-record.swift -o sck-record). Records the main display + system audio via

ScreenCaptureKit.

./sck-record <out.mp4> <seconds>

The one true differentiator: system audio from the CLI with zero install — no

BlackHole / loopback virtual device, no sudo; only the standard Screen Recording permission

(granted once to whatever app shells out). It is not a general "better than OBS/Screen

Studio" tool — it fills exactly the headless-CLI-with-system-audio gap.

sck-record is the raw capture primitive — it records, nothing more. To polish a

recording afterward (idle speed-up, auto-zoom, keystroke chips, smoothed cursor,

vertical export), pair it with

screenstudio-alternative-skill:

record with sck-record --no-cursor <out.mp4> <seconds>, then run its post-production

pass on the resulting mp4. (Auto-zoom and keystroke overlays additionally need an

input-event log captured during recording, which that skill supplies; sck-record's

pixels alone cover idle speed-up, cursor smoothing, and vertical export.)

Limitations

• macOS only; it depends on ScreenCaptureKit and the user's Screen Recording permission.
• The recorder captures raw display and system audio but does not provide editing, auto-zoom, captions, or social-format polish by itself.
• Input-event overlays require a separate event log captured during recording; pixels alone cannot reconstruct keystrokes or precise click metadata.