vellum-ai/screen-recording

Capture screen recordings as video files attached to the conversation.

Activation

This skill activates when the user asks to record their screen. Common phrases:

Start recording:

• "record my screen"
• "start recording"
• "begin recording"
• "capture my screen"
• "capture my display"
• "make a recording"
• "Nova, record my screen" (where Nova is the assistant's identity name)
• "hey Nova, start recording"

Stop recording:

• "stop recording"
• "end recording"
• "finish recording"
• "halt recording"

Restart recording:

• "restart recording"
• "redo the recording"
• "stop recording and start a new one"
• "stop recording and start a new recording"
• "stop and restart the recording"

Pause recording:

• "pause recording"
• "pause the recording"

Resume recording:

• "resume recording"
• "unpause the recording"

Routing

Recording is managed through dedicated HTTP endpoints (/v1/recordings/*) rather than text-based intent detection. Two routing mechanisms exist:

1. commandIntent (structured command) - highest priority

The macOS client can send structured intents with domain: 'screen_recording' and action: 'start' | 'stop' | 'restart' | 'pause' | 'resume'. These bypass text parsing entirely. The assistant checks for commandIntent before any text analysis.

2. HTTP endpoints

Clients call the recording HTTP endpoints directly:

• POST /v1/recordings/start - start a screen recording
• POST /v1/recordings/stop - stop the active recording
• POST /v1/recordings/pause - pause the active recording
• POST /v1/recordings/resume - resume a paused recording
• GET /v1/recordings/status - get current recording status
• POST /v1/recordings/status - recording lifecycle callback from the client

3. Normal processing

If no recording intent is detected, the message flows to the classifier and computer-use session as usual.

Behavior Rules

1. Do not invoke computer use for recording-only requests. The assistant handles these directly.
2. One recording at a time. If a recording is already active, starting another returns an "already recording" message.
3. Conversation-linked. Each recording is linked to the conversation that started it for attachment purposes. However, since only one recording can be active at a time, stop commands from any conversation will stop the active recording regardless of which conversation started it.
4. Permission required. Screen recording requires macOS Screen Recording permission. If denied, the user sees actionable guidance to enable it in System Settings.
5. Mixed-intent prompts (recording + other task) are NOT intercepted by the standalone route - the recording action is deferred and executed alongside the task.
6. Restart always reopens the source picker and requires source reselection.
7. Restart cancel (user closes the source picker) leaves state idle - no false "recording started" message.
8. Pause/resume toggle the recording without stopping it. The HUD shows paused state.

What This Skill Does NOT Do

• This skill does not contain recorder logic - the RecordingManager and ScreenRecorder in the macOS app handle the actual recording.
• This skill does not provide shell commands or scripts for recording.
• This skill does not fall back to computer use for recording tasks.
• This skill does not handle informational questions about recording - those flow through to normal AI response.