capture

name	capture
description	Capture the frontmost macOS application window as an appshot (screenshot + accessibility tree)

Capture AppShot

Use when you need a fresh screenshot and accessibility tree of the frontmost macOS application for visual and structural context.

When to use

• User switches focus to a different window and wants you to see the updated state
• You need the current visual state of an app (not the cached last capture)
• User asks to "take a screenshot", "capture this", or "screenshot the current window"
• You're debugging or analyzing a macOS app's visual or accessibility interface

What it does

Invokes the take_appshot MCP tool, which captures the frontmost macOS app window:

1. Takes a full-resolution screenshot
2. Walks the app's accessibility tree to extract UI structure and text content
3. Generates a Codex-style <appshot> prompt block with structured UI state
4. Saves the capture under ~/.appshots/snapshots/<date>/<capture-id>/
5. Updates stable pointers (~/.appshots/latest.md, latest.txt, latest.json)
6. Returns the prompt text and screenshot image

Output formats

Pass format to customize the response:

• codex (default): <appshot> block + screenshot for model input
• prompt: the full appshot markdown text
• model_prompt: model-ready prompt format
• context: structured AppshotContext object with metadata
• json: machine-readable capture metadata
• payload: JSON with the model prompt, image path, image data URL, and metadata
• events: the capture status event log
• image_path: path to the screenshot image on disk
• directory: the capture directory path on disk

Related

• get_latest_appshot — fetch the most recent capture without taking a new one
• search_appshots — find a specific past capture by app, title, or content