shaw-baobao/screenshot

codex-mcp-screenshot

A macOS-only Model Context Protocol (MCP) server and CLI that captures the front-most window of a named application. It supports inline previews in compatible terminals, optional clipboard copy, and an on-demand image payload for Codex clients.

Features

• 🎯 Target the active window by app name (e.g., Safari, Xcode)
• 🪟 Three-level fallback: window-id → window frame crop → full-screen
• 🖼 Inline preview for iTerm2 / Kitty / WezTerm; others receive the saved path
• 📋 Optional PNG copy to the system clipboard
• 🧰 Ships as both an MCP server (codex-mcp-screenshot) and CLI (codex-screenshot)
• 📦 Published on npm for easy npx usage

Requirements & Permissions

• macOS with the screencapture binary (built-in)
• First run will prompt for:
  • Screen Recording permission (System Settings → Privacy & Security)
  • Accessibility permission (for AppleScript window info)
• Run commands from a terminal/IDE that has these permissions granted

Install / Update

npm install -g codex-mcp-screenshot   # optional global install
# or invoke ad-hoc with npx (see below)

Use as a Codex MCP server

Update ~/.config/codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.screenshot]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "codex-mcp-screenshot@latest"]

Then in your Codex session call the tool:

screenshot_app {"app":"Safari","copyToClipboard":true}

The response includes:

• content: text summary (path, clipboard status) and, when requested, an image attachment
• metadata: path, display preference, and whether the PNG was copied

Returning the image payload

To avoid overflowing the model context, the server does not send base64 image data unless you opt in:

screenshot_app {"app":"Safari","includeImage":true}

Use this only when you really need the image streamed back to Codex.

Use as a standalone CLI

npx codex-mcp-screenshot --app "Safari" --display inline --copy
# shorthand once installed globally
codex-screenshot --app "Xcode" --display path

CLI flags:

• --app <name> (required): App name as shown in Activity Monitor / Dock
• --display <auto|inline|path|base64> (default auto)
• --copy: copy PNG data to the clipboard
• --out-dir <path>: custom destination folder

Internals

• src/shared/macos.js — window discovery + screenshot capture via AppleScript and screencapture
• src/shared/display.js — inline rendering helpers for supported terminals
• src/server.js — MCP entrypoint (also exposed as codex-mcp-screenshot bin)
• src/cli.js — CLI wrapper around the same capture pipeline

License

MIT