| name | macos-screen-recorder |
| description | macOS screen recorder that captures the main display PLUS system audio via ScreenCaptureKit — no BlackHole/loopback driver, no sudo, just the standard Screen Recording permission. CLI-driven; fills the headless-screen-recording-with-system-sound gap QuickTime and `screencapture -v` can't. |
| risk | safe |
| source | community |
| source_type | community |
| source_repo | connerkward/macos-screen-recorder-system-audio |
| date_added | 2026-06-16 |
| author | Conner K Ward |
| license | MIT |
| tags | ["macos","screen-recording","system-audio","screencapturekit","cli","swift"] |
| tools | ["claude-code","antigravity","cursor","gemini-cli","codex-cli"] |
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.
