screenshot

name: screenshot

description: Take a screenshot of the plugin UI using the standalone app CLI for debugging and documentation

Screenshot Plugin UI

Use this skill to capture screenshots of the plugin UI. This is useful for:

• Debugging UI design - Quickly verify control layouts, colors, and positioning without launching a DAW

• Documentation - Generate consistent screenshots for README files and wikis

• CI/CD pipelines - Automated visual regression testing or asset generation

Prerequisites

Build the standalone app (APP target) first:

cd [ProjectFolder]

xcodebuild -project "./projects/[ProjectName]-macOS.xcodeproj" -target APP -configuration Debug

The app will be built to ~/Applications/[PluginName].app

Take Screenshot

macOS

~/Applications/[PluginName].app/Contents/MacOS/[PluginName] --screenshot /path/to/output.png

Example

# Take screenshot of IPlugEffect

~/Applications/IPlugEffect.app/Contents/MacOS/IPlugEffect --screenshot ./screenshot.png

The app will:

1. Launch and display the UI (audio/MIDI I/O is automatically disabled)

2. Wait ~500ms for the UI to fully render

3. Capture the window to a PNG file

4. Exit automatically

Options

• --screenshot <path> - Path to save the PNG screenshot (required)

• --no-io - Explicitly disable audio/MIDI (implicit when using --screenshot)

Tips

• Screenshots are high-DPI (Retina) resolution on supported displays

• The screenshot captures the plugin content area

• For iterative UI debugging, rebuild the APP target and re-run the screenshot command

• Combine with the build skill: build first, then screenshot