argent-screen-recording

Use it when:: You want a video of a flow, interaction or animation in your app on an iOS simulator, Android emulator or Android phone.
It does:: Starts recording with a time cap, sets itself a reminder to stop, drives the interaction, then stops and checks the file.
You get:: A video file in your project's .argent/recordings/, or ~/.argent/recordings/ outside one, plus a reminder to .gitignore or delete it if it shouldn't be committed.
Watermark:: A faint Argent logo in a corner, until you run argent disable video-watermark.
Not supported:: Physical iPhones, tvOS simulators, Chromium apps, Fire TV and HarmonyOS.
Needs:: The Argent MCP server.

Skill 7 of 12 in the Argent bundle, after argent-screenshot-diff and before argent-metro-debugger.

TL;DR

Part of Software Mansion's Argent toolkit, which lets the agent control simulators, emulators and devices. Its first rule is never to leave a recording running: a forgotten one keeps capturing until its time cap and holds the session. So as soon as recording starts, the agent sets a reminder for the expected end, with a scheduling tool or a background sleep, and reads the note every Argent result carries while a recording runs. The steps: get the app to the opening state, start recording with a cap slightly above the expected length, drive the interaction, batching tight steps so tool latency doesn't pad the video, then stop, check any warning and confirm the file has a sane size. The agent tells you where the file landed, a folder you can change with argent config, and that it's untracked, so you can add it to .gitignore or delete it if it shouldn't be committed. Limits: one recording per device at a time, the video keeps the screen size it started with, landscape on remote simulators plays sideways, and secure Android screens come out black.

Summarizes the skill at b965c94.

npx skills add https://github.com/software-mansion/argent --skill argent-screen-recording

skills.sh page Source on GitHub All skills from software-mansion/argent

Total Downloads: 21,100 on skills.sh, Nov 9, 2026
Repo stars: 3,175 software-mansion/argent
First seen: Jul 23, 2026 on skills.sh

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+27% over the 8 weeks to Nov 9

Weekly values

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Category	category:debugging category:media category:computer-use category:software-engineering Find root causes, review code and test what you built. Generate and edit video, images and audio. Drive desktop apps, phones and simulators: tap, type, read the screen and test native apps. Everything for building software: planning, coding, debugging, design, frameworks, cloud, agents and skills.
Type	type:workflow A multi-step process the agent follows: interview, debug, run a TDD loop, review.
Effect	effect:local Its own steps create or change files, git state or local tools.
Needs	needs:mcp Needs an MCP server connected.
Publisher	by:official A verified publisher on skills.sh, or the company or maintainer behind the product the skill operates.
Topics	video mobile
Stack	stack:argent

SKILL.md

From software-mansion/argent at b965c94. Checked daily, last changed Nov 6, 2026.

Frontmatter

name: argent-screen-recording
description: Record a video of an iOS simulator or Android emulator/device screen using argent MCP tools. Use when the user asks to record the screen, capture a video of a flow, interaction, or animation, produce a screen recording, or document app behavior as a video clip.

screen-recording-start and screen-recording-stop carry the options (timeLimitSeconds, trimStatic, showTouches) and the result fields. One recording per device at a time; different devices can record concurrently.

1. Critical: never leave a recording running

A forgotten recording keeps capturing until its timeLimitSeconds cap fires, holding the session and delaying the video. Use both safety nets:

Set yourself a reminder the moment the recording starts, for the expected end of the interaction. Use whatever your harness provides: a reminder/wakeup or scheduled-task tool if you have one, otherwise a background shell running sleep <expected-seconds> whose completion notification pulls you back. When it fires, call screen-recording-stop. Do not rely on remembering.
Read the tool-result notes. While a recording runs, every argent tool result carries a NOTE: about it. If the note says the recording already ended, still call screen-recording-stop: that is what hands you the file.

2. Workflow

Get the device booted and the app into the state the video should open on (list-devices, launch-app, argent-device-interact).
Call screen-recording-start with udid and a timeLimitSeconds slightly above the expected interaction length.
Set the end-of-recording reminder from §1; this step is not optional.
Drive the interaction (argent-device-interact). Prefer run-sequence for tight multi-step interactions so tool-call latency does not pad the video.
Call screen-recording-stop with the same udid. Check warning (cap-triggered stop, early encoder exit, dropped frame stream, possibly truncated file) and confirm the file has a sane size before presenting it.

Where the file lands. A finished recording is saved durably on the client, even with a remote argent link tool-server: into <project>/.argent/recordings/ (the nearest ancestor of the client's working directory with a .git/package.json/.argent), or ~/.argent/recordings/ outside a project. Change it with argent config set recordings.directory <dir> (--scope project for a per-repo choice). Mention the path to the user, and that the file is untracked: add it to .gitignore or clean it up if it shouldn't be committed.

3. Platform notes and limits

Recordable: iOS simulators (local and remote remote:), Android emulators and physical Android devices. Unsupported: physical iPhones, tvOS simulators, Chromium apps, Vega/Fire TV and HarmonyOS. For a still frame use screenshot; for a replayable interaction script use argent-create-e2e.
One size per video: the video keeps the size of the screen at the start; a later size change is letterboxed. On a foldable simulator, start recording on the panel you need at full size.
Remote (remote:) simulators: the video keeps the screen's portrait orientation, so a device in landscape plays sideways.
Android: secure screens (DRM, some password fields) come out black.
Watermark: a faint Argent logo is stamped bottom-left. Turn it off with argent disable video-watermark; the flag is read when a recording starts.