take-screenshots_skill

Overview

This skill provides Windows screenshot capture with both programmatic full-screen grabs and interactive region selection. It saves JPEG output with configurable quality and scaling to reduce file size. The tool returns structured JSON to stdout so calling processes can parse results or errors programmatically.

How this skill works

You invoke the executable with command-line flags to choose mode (full or region), output path, and optional parameters like monitor index, quality, and scale. In full mode it captures one or all monitors; in region mode it displays an interactive selector and returns coordinates. The program writes a JSON success, error, or cancellation object to stdout and saves the image file to the provided path.

When to use it

• Capture an entire monitor or all monitors for full-screen diagnostics or documentation.
• Select a precise screen region for bug reports, UI snippets, or focused screenshots.
• Reduce image size before sending to models or over networks using JPEG quality and scale parameters.
• Automate screenshots from scripts or tools needing JSON output and consistent file paths.
• Collect screen evidence during automated workflows while recording monitor index and rectangle coordinates.

Best practices

• Always specify --out with a .jpg/.jpeg filename when you want compression; otherwise use lossless formats if available.
• Set --quality (1–100) and --scale (0.1–1.0) to balance visual fidelity and file size for downstream processing.
• Check the JSON response's ok field before using the saved file; handle cancelled: true for region mode.
• Use --monitor or --all explicitly in full mode to avoid ambiguous captures on multi-monitor systems.
• Provide a clear --prompt string in region mode to guide users during interactive selection.

Example use cases

• Automated nightly capture of the primary display for visual regression testing: --mode full --monitor 0 --out nightly.jpg --quality 80 --scale 0.5.
• Manual bug reporting: run region mode with a custom prompt to capture the offending UI element and attach coordinates from the JSON output.
• Send lightweight screenshots to an LLM by scaling to 0.5 and using JPEG quality 75 to reduce upload size.
• Capture all connected displays for multi-monitor troubleshooting with --mode full --all --out multi.jpg.
• Embed screenshot capture into a diagnostic script that parses JSON to record width, height, and monitorIndex for each capture.